January 12, 2021 • 56 mins
What is Hell? It's complicated and depends on which religion you're talking about. We dive into this fiery mess and do our best to explain it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w St. Chuck Bryant uh, and st. Jerome
Rowland is out there as well. I'm not a staying
(00:22):
I'm sinner. Uh. And this is stuff you should know.
The first real episode of the New Year, it is Chuck.
It's uh beyond the future now, It's that's so futuristic,
no one ever even used it in a sci fi book.
That's right. We we had our are what we like
to call our elementary school Christmas break, which means it's
(00:45):
about three and a half weeks long. We worked hard
for that. We do, so you better treat us, right.
That's that's right. How was your holiday? Good? It was good.
I've I finally got to just kind of disconnect and
decouple and just relax. And it was not Actually I
went I went the entire time without cracking my computer open.
(01:07):
I was really proud of that. Yeah, I couldn't believe it.
Like I did stuff on my phone that I needed to,
but I just there was a ban on opening my laptops,
even just for funzies. Yeah, no, poin didn't. I didn't
want to write. I didn't want to see uh computer
or a keyboard for a little while, and I was
able to do it. Yeah, that I just did. The
(01:28):
porn was all just like I just made drawings myself, right,
flip books. I uh loved doing things in my laptop.
But I was proud of myself for not looking at
any work emails. I did a little bit at first, because,
as you know, some buttoning up into the year stuff.
But then I was just like, you know what, and
(01:49):
you know what I put as my I mean, you've
seen my occasional auto reply, which is, uh, if it's
an emergency, please realize that there are no podcast emergency,
which is sort of true. It's I think true. Actually.
And you got your slide whistle. I did. I don't
(02:10):
have it with me right now or else. I dang,
we got a debut the slide whistle later because I
got to hear that thing. Yes, we do, thank you
for that. Did you get your gift from me? I did? Okay, good.
I thought that that you would find that wildly appropriate
and it helped out our buddy too. That's right. Um.
And so we're just gonna wade into some easy, easy
(02:33):
waters here with hell. Hell. This is tough. Man. I
was like, who's dumb idea was this? And I realized
it was mine? Uh so I never forgot. Yeah, the
c I a here is is that. I mean, people
like I think the Grabster helped us put this together.
He said, people make their entire careers out of just
(02:54):
Dante's Inferno, much less concepts of Hell. And uh it
is very broad and dense and confusing, and so this
is sort of a just a stuff you shouldn't know
stab at it. Yeah, and let me just add to
that that we are in no way, shape or form
biblical scholars, theologians. We're gonna get a lot of stuff wrong.
(03:15):
We're probably gonna walk right past interpretations they're popular and
widely accepted. We were like, this is this is just
us talking about hell, So just relax. We already know
we're going to hell, so there's nothing you can do
to us that's any worse. Um, So just calm down
and enjoy the episode. How about that? Enjoy this episode
about eternal conscious torment. Yeah, and if you are a
(03:37):
scholar of Dante, just don't even listen. Yeah, you will
literally puke into your cupped hands while you're listening to
this on the train because you're that polite. That's right,
go back and listen to the Science of Cute again. Um. Wow,
that was that was a reference to something that doesn't
even exist yet. That's hetty. Yeah, So Chuck, I want
(03:58):
to talk first. I'm mentioned eternal conscious torment, and that
is kind of like the the broad spectrum of what
most people walking around today in the Western world, whether
they're Christian or just familiar with the Christian concept of hell,
think of hell. It's where your your soul is tormented,
(04:20):
beaten up, bullied, um, maybe talked about behind its back, uh,
set on fire. Um. And in this in this state, um,
there's no dying, there's no death of the soul. The
soul is immortal. So this, this pain, this torment, this
horrible nous just keeps going on forever and ever and ever.
And that is that's that comes directly from St. Augustine,
(04:43):
who kind of plays big into this concept of hell.
But the idea that there's an immortal soul, that it
goes somewhere after death, and that depending on how it
behaved here on earth, um, it may or may not
face eternal conscious torment. That is seriously, it's the theological
term that they used today that strikes some people, some theologians,
is wildly disproportionate to the kinds of sins we're talking
(05:08):
about here, Like like you over indulged in fudge brownie
mix during your time on Earth means that you're going
to be to just suffer a literal, not never ending, infinite,
eternal torment of damnation because you over indulged in brownie mix.
That just doesn't quite jibe for some people. So there
(05:30):
there have been other alternatives that were posed many many
years ago, that were actually around in some cases before
eternal conscious torment came around. Um that some people are saying, like, hey,
maybe this is a better interpretation of what's actually going
on with Hell. Are you familiar with those other interpretations well?
Which ones, uh, namely universalism and annihilationism. Mm hmm. This
(05:57):
was that thing that I was saying, we got to
talk about these such check this out. I'm gonna let
me wow you for a second, okay, because these are
to me, the softer, gentler versions of hell. One is
that the universalism. Another terms universal salvation, and it's this
idea that there is an end, there's a there's a
(06:18):
finite date to the to the torment, and that you're
basically going to hell depending on how badly you sinned.
But over time you can kind of work that sin
off and you will eventually come out the other end
saved and go to heaven. And that that happens to everybody.
Everyone is is it can possibly go to heaven through
(06:41):
this idea. The other is annihilationism, which makes a lot
of sense to if you believe in this kind of stuff. That, um,
the people who are saved, the righteous, the virtuous, people
who are going to go to heaven, they go on
to heaven after they die. Everybody else just ceases to exist.
They're annihilated upon death. No hell, but there's no heavenly
(07:02):
reward for those people. I like those a lot more
than eternal conscious torment. The thing is, eternal conscious torment
is so gripping. Yeah, that it's it's like this is
this is this is just what people think of when
they think of hell. And apparently, if you're an evangelical
in particular and you believe in anything but eternal conscious torment,
(07:23):
you're you're you're flirting with being shunned by your peers
because you're you're going in the face of Orthodoxy. Well, yeah,
I mean, you know, it's it's a lot to unpack.
I know, you grew up fairly Catholic, and I've regret
how many times I've had to say the word Baptist
on this show. I feel like there's a lot of
(07:43):
people taking a shot right now if this is the
stuff you should know, drinking game. But I can't not
mention that growing up Baptist, it's a very uh, you know,
it's a very fiery, brimstony um religion and it's um.
I very much up with the concept, this very sort
of trophy concept of heaven is this um you know,
(08:07):
lovely place where God lives. It's in the up there
in the clouds, and you go up and then if
you're not good, then you go down to somewhere, I
guess in the center of the earth where the devil
lives and where Satan pokes you, and where you are
you know, there's lakes of fire and it's all very
scary and and you know, it wasn't until I got
(08:29):
a little bit older that I realized that these are
stories told to get children in line. Yeah, and not
just children, adults who go on to continue to believe
in how you know and and to subscribe to this stuff.
For sure, it's definitely a way to keep people in line.
But the concept of hell generally in the concept of souls. Uh.
(08:49):
And this is probably no surprise to most um sort
of critical thinkers. But you know, the the idea of
being worm dirt and after you die, that's just it
is a lot to take gone as you approached that day. Yeah,
so it is really it makes a lot of sense.
I think that people from very early on started to
think about the concept of a soul um, a self
(09:11):
that lived on um. And you know, it just makes
sense that there's a quote good place in a bad place. Yeah.
But the thing is is, apparently it doesn't seem to
have necessarily been just like part and parcels. From from
what Ed's saying and from what I saw elsewhere in
the research, is that heaven seemed to have developed first
(09:34):
very early on, and then there was a real emphasis
on symmetry in the ancient and in like pre modern world,
where if you had one you had the opposite and
equal proportions. So eventually over time that kind of was
like well, if there's this really lovely place that's like
paradise after you die, then there has to be the
opposite of that, the antithesis of that too, And that's
(09:56):
where this development of hell came from. But the fact
that hell wasn't hasn't always been around her as long
as you know, the idea of the afterlife, and then
the idea that it wasn't ever hasn't always been this
place where you're you were subject to the most cruel
kinds of punishments available to to the human imagination. Right. Yeah, Um,
(10:18):
that that's not that's not as old as as the
idea of the afterlife either. That that was really surprising
to me. But it's it's pretty neat because it's weird.
It's almost like humanity got infected by a germ of
real meanness and in darkness that we're still living with today,
(10:38):
and that you could kind of trace it in in
the evolution of our idea of hell as well or
to the beginnings of Twitter. That's that's right. So, uh,
that's evil incarnate. It depends on what religions you're talking about,
but virtually every religion has some sort of afterlife concept. Um.
Early judy is Um. Of course certainly does. If you
(11:02):
read back, um ed described something from the Sumerian underworld,
where they kind of more talk about hell as uh
or the afterlife I guess is just sort of boring. Uh.
And there wasn't you know, you didn't go to a
fiery place where you're tormented. Um. They talk about, you know,
being thirsty and eating dust. Certainly unpleasant. Um. But then
(11:23):
this idea starts where you can be in a better
place in the afterlife according to what you've achieved on earth,
but not necessarily good deeds at first. Like if you're
really rich, then you're gonna go to a good place
because your family could afford to bury you with food
and drink and jewels and gold and stuff like that
(11:46):
to carry with you to the other side, and that
would put you in a much better standing. But again,
this is not like I was a good person. This
is just I died rich. So all these really valuable
things they could put underground and bury with me. Right,
But in the same way to the living could care
for you. They could. You might not be rich, but
your family might care so much about you that they
(12:08):
come on every Sunday whatever they called Sunday's back when
the Sumerians were running around, um and bring you like
a little food and a little beer or something like that.
And and they were sustaining you in this place where
everybody else was eating dust and dirt. But your family
so loved you because you've been such a good person
during your time while you were alive, that they were
(12:30):
coming and bringing you like bread and beer. Um. And
in that sense, also, Chuck, is really kind of poetic
because you, that person, are living on in the memories
of your family after you died, because they're coming and
keeping your memory alive by bringing you bread and beer
and all that. And so in that way, you are
living on in this kind of immortal means as well.
(12:52):
But the converse of that is really disturbing, and that
if you don't inspire people to care about you afterwards,
like you really ceased to exist, like there's there's there's
no one on earth who's thinking of you, are honoring you.
And in that sense, if there is no afterlife you you,
that is annihilation. That is true oblivion. What Disney or
Pixar movie is it? I saw it recently, that has
(13:15):
to do it. It's brutal um like you're being erased
and until you're remembered after death, Eternal Sunshine, the Spotless Mind.
Now I know it's called inside out. Maybe no, that's
the one about the emotions, which is equally brutal. Yeah,
I don't think that. I thought her. I thought the
kids like imaginary friend was being erased or demolished. And
(13:37):
then was that in that movie? I think so? Yeah,
remember the elephant that was like George Clooney's friend Richard
has it right now? It certainly seems that, Oh, I
can't remember. And this is officially marks the first podcast
of the year where people are screaming at us, which
is coincidentally the first podcast of the year that we record.
(14:00):
That's right. Um, I think it's Egypt, Ancient Egypt, where
the first the first idea of like, um, this this
weird sort of afterlife, uh judgment panel sort of steps
in where you know, there are people like literally in
charge of this thing, almost like a bureaucracy, and there's
an administration and it's it sounds a little bit more
(14:22):
like Sammy David's JRS sitcom pilot that failed. Oh yeah,
I forgot about that. She Devil. I don't remember it.
Definitely wasn't she devil? That was wasn't it was something
like that though, Yeah, but it was that was pretty good.
The show was, I mean the the like one minute
trailer I saw me pretty good. Um. But this, you know,
(14:46):
the ancient Judaism sort of overlaps with some of this stuff.
But Judaism is a it's a it's a whole different
thing because you know, they have references. There's a lot
of references to things that were later just sort of
rewritten and reach translated as hell, which makes it really
confusing if you look at ancient texts. Yeah, Judaism head shield, um,
(15:07):
which is it kind of follows in that same tradition, uh,
from the pre Christian era that like when you died,
there was an afterlife and there wasn't much to it.
It wasn't but it wasn't it wasn't particularly pleasant. Yeah.
Apparently to the to the the early Jews, they were
they were basically saying like this is it's the state
(15:29):
of mind after death more than like if interdimensional like
physical place that exists outside of this world, not like
a realm. But yeah, like you're saying like a, yeah,
like I guess a state of mind as far as
as that as that goes. But it also suggests that
you still have a mind after you die well, and
(15:50):
it also suggests that um, I mean, there's a little
bit of the punishment and reward, but it's not necessarily
you go to the fiery place or you go to
have and it's a little more of a spiritual connection,
like if you did good on earth, you're gonna spend
your afterlife a little closer to God. If you're not
such a great person, you're gonna be, you know, a
(16:10):
little further away from God, right, right. But but overall,
the point of she'all was that no matter what you
did on earth, no matter who you were, good person,
bad person, doesn't matter, you were going to go to
the same place. And even at the time, apparently they
realized that this was unjust. There's like a part of
(16:32):
I think Ecclesiastes that says that the fact that there
are that everybody goes to the same place, no matter
how good or bad you are in life. This is
the injustice that is done under the sun. The same
fate comes to everyone, which I didn't realize that Ecclesiastes rhyme,
but it's got a nice, nice beat to it, nice tempo.
Does it doesn't all rhyme? Does it? I don't think so.
(16:55):
I was kind of surprised at any of it rhyme.
But there's that That's a really important point, Chuck that
um to these ancient people, whether they were the early
Jews or the Canaanites or um or the Egyptians, there
was there was not punishment in the afterlife. God punished
you during life like you you were suddenly you know,
(17:15):
like directing or something like that. That was punishment from God.
As we kind of evolved away from that, the idea
that God had a direct daily hand in our lives
as a as a a species, that punishment moved to
the afterlife rather than during this life, right, which is
not recognized. And Judaism of course as New Testament stuff now,
(17:38):
And there was something else that stuck out to me
is well, we'll kind of see in a second. Judaism
seems to have been developed as a religion um as
as contrary to some of the other religious beliefs that
were around, Like they seem to have really kind of
opposed the Canaanites. The Canaanites were into child sacrifice. They um,
(18:00):
they had multiple gods, um. And the Jews kind of
played off of that, like some of these these devils
that we understand today, demons like malok and by all
you know, be a apostrophe a l um, those were
actually Canaanite gods, and they kind of perverted the pronunciation
(18:21):
of them to kind of mock them or make them
seem other or different. Um. And you think, like, well,
that's not very nice. That's one religion disparaging another. But
at the same time, the early Jews were saying like, also,
we shouldn't be sacrificing children, like that's not that's not
a good thing to do. Let's practice this other thing instead.
(18:42):
So I'm I'm kind of a fan of the the
of early Judaism. It turns out I had no idea
you should convert. I just might. Should we take a break.
I think we should. All right, let's take a break.
We'll read up a little bit on whether or not
you're allowed to convert, because I don't even know, and
then we'll be back right after this. Have you converted?
(19:25):
I looked it up. I'm not allowed to. It would
require me to be religious. Oh well, interesting. Uh So
we talked a little bit about the sort of the
confusion of I mean, a lot of the confusion in
what we think of as hell lies in um. Just
these these texts, some Hebrew text and translations and miss
translations and stories that are told, you know, the old
(19:48):
game of telephone that happened throughout the years while these
things were passed on. So there's a lot of things
that you know over the years that you've thought of
sort of as a generic hell, like Haiti, which was Greek,
the Greek underworld um also synonymous with the shield, but
not Hell. Uh. There's Tartarus that's in the Old Testament,
(20:10):
also from the Greeks, that more closely resembles Hell from
what I could tell. Yeah, and that's like a part
of the underworld where God's in prison enemies. Um. There
is like punishment, it's fiery and maybe that concept and
like a lot of this what we're doing is sort
of unpacking what we think of as hell now and
sort of where this stuff came from. And it seems
(20:31):
like Tartarus is uh is definitely one of those places. Yeah,
And like Hades and she all more closely resemble purgatory
um or Limbo, where Tartarus. Yes, is definitely hell. Hell,
Like that's where torment and fire is and all all
this stuff that's really kind of like popped up to me.
It's like, wow, this is like are what we think
(20:55):
of as hell today? Even like the cartoon Hell with
like the pitchfork in the fire and all that stuff.
This is some ancient stuff that it's built on. Over
EON's you know, like the earliest people who started burying
their dead because they thought like maybe there was a
life afterward. And it just kind of evolved from that, Colonel,
and more and more civilizations came along and added to
(21:17):
it and subtracted to it and said no, you're wrong,
No you're wrong, and let's go to war over this.
Like Hell is like this hammered steel drum that's been
hammered out by you know, millennia of of people and cultures,
and it sounds pretty good. Yeah. I thought you were
about to say by John Bonham did he play a
(21:38):
steel drum? No, but it just you sounded it sounded
like the intro to it led Zeppelin song their first
second um Gehenna is something else we should mention. This
is another kind of quote unquote hell um But this
was a real place. It was a literal place near
Jerusalem where it sounds like it was kind of a
uh some sort of ancient uh almost the word I'm
(22:01):
looking for, not necessarily a where where do you take
all the trash? Episode about it? Land land? Yeah, sort
of a landfill on fire. Okay, that's one interpretation, which
is a great record title. I think landfill, Yeah, why not?
But this is where they like would take stuff to burn, um,
(22:21):
trash basically. And uh there might have also been child
sacrifice happening there because I guess they figured, well, there's
a fire already happening, so we won't have to start one. Um.
It depends on what source you're looking at. But it
became a metaphorical hell where a place that was on fire.
You could be sent there. It was a place of judgment,
you could be cast into it. Uh. And that's in
(22:43):
the New Testament of course. Um. So that's another sort
of hades like um, I guess usage that just makes
it all the more confusing. Yeah. But again, like like
you know, as we're getting further and further along and
deeper and deeper into Christianity, which we haven't quite hit yet,
when Gehennah was first introduced because I think that's Jewish, right,
(23:06):
It's like a Jewish So even though it is in
the New Testament um, which has even more confusing right,
but it kind of shows you how like connected, like
these these civilizations and groups were over the ages, you
know that this still popped up just borrowing things from
one another exactly. But then as these translations, you know,
kind of go on over the centuries and there's newer
(23:27):
and different versions of the Bible and the New Testament,
the Old Testament, like you know, all these things just
become this generic Hell, which kind of opens it up two,
making how this big, huge, amorphous place where oh, it's
like this, but it's also like this, and it's like that.
And by naming everything just Hell and losing that kind
(23:49):
of the ethnicity involved, the Christians were able to kind
of wholesale adopt all of these ancient traditions and conceptions
of Hell into their own version of Hell. And this
is the Christian Hell, whereas if you kind of start
poking behind it, you're like, oh, this is this Christian
Hell is made up of all these other conceptions of
hell along the way. So as far as like uh,
(24:12):
and I love that Ed calls a section the topology
of Hell, but that's sort of you know, a big
part of it is um. And we mentioned a little
bit Heaven as this place where God lives that's above you,
up in the sky because it's pretty no one really
knows exactly where all that comes from, but it all
does make sense UM that you know, you look to
(24:32):
the skies when you pray, you look up when you're
talking to God. And if that's the case, then it
makes sense that, like you said, with the symmetry, that
there is another place we bury the dead underground, it
makes sense that there would be a place that's deep
and dark and fiery. I guess you know, cave like
deep underground. That stuff is scary. So it makes sense
(24:55):
that Hell just sort of became this place that's uh,
for lack of a better word, under our eat somewhere. Yeah.
And what was interesting to me is that like disconnected
UM groups and cultures, not just geographically but through time
as well, all had that same conception that like Hell
was underground and Heaven was somewhere above us or in
(25:17):
the sky. UM like the Mayan's had a place called Shebalba,
which is like I guess translates to a place of fear,
and that is when you die. You start out there
and it's underground, and it's hellish and scary, and you
have to work your way up basically into the sky
to paradise. Um, and she all was underground. It was
(25:37):
connected to the grave, and that seems to be where
this idea also not just that heaven was in the sky,
so hell must be underground, but also that there has
to be some connection underground because we've been burying people
or at least putting our dead in you know, deep
dark caves for at least a hundred and thirty thousand
(25:59):
years from what I seen, but um, it may even
go back before that. In Neanderthals, I think buried they're dead.
Even so, it's a really kind of ancient impulse to
like put your dead underground or in some some underground,
subterranean place like a cave chamber. So of course that
would be connected to the afterlife in some way. But
it is interesting that it's like, as far as I
(26:20):
can tell, there's not a single culture that's like, oh, yeah,
that's where heaven is is underground. Yeah, And it's like
I find myself saying, well, it makes sense because you
climb your way out of hell with good works towards heaven.
Like it's sort of a chicken or the egg thing,
Like it makes sense to me, But it only makes
sense because that's the way it's always been framed. Yeah,
there's a few thousand years of culture behind that, that
(26:44):
way that you were raised or I was raised, you know. Yeah,
so you mentioned purgatory. Um, this is the realm of
the afterlife. Uh, purgatory is um. It's like a waiting
room where you were waiting to be judged. Um. It
is not. It's not like a great place. It's not
like an awesome waiting room with like the best magazines.
(27:04):
It's more like the waiting room with umoylights and high lights, right,
nothing but highlights and boys life and all of the
puzzles are already filled out. Yeah or oh man. The
worst is any doctor's office where it's nothing but like
medical and health magazines. Like, no one wants to read
that stuff in there, No they don't. You want to
read a three year old sports illustrated right, and everybody
(27:27):
else in the waiting room is not wearing a mask.
Oh no, thank you. It's it's the version of hell. Dude.
That's my new nightmare. I've had having those about three
times a week where I'm being descended upon. There they
seem like zombies, but they're just people without mask right,
it's weird potato potato. But you know what's funny? Has
(27:49):
this has happened to you where you where you watch
like movies or TV shows or something pre COVID and
it's like you're way too close to that person. Get back,
like we have been changed, man, possibly for ever. Oh
I think you'd be surprised how quickly we'll forget. I
hope so, oh man, I hope, so, I hope this
all just becomes like some bad dream that just fades
over time. And now my mom's getting vaccinated this Saturday.
(28:11):
Good for her, Jack, she needs to do live on
Instagram or something. Yeah. She was like, you know, should
I have any reservations? It was like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
And she's like, well then I mean I have to
wait in line. You're like, oh, those reservations, make reservations,
make reservations, but yes, stuck. Being stuck in purgatory is
not a good thing. Um, so it's not it's not hell,
(28:34):
but it's not someplace where you want to be. That's
why people you know, use that term now like I'm
in purgatory. Yeah, And there's something about purgatory that hadn't
really realized it. It's not interchangeable with limbo. When you
go into limbo, you're there forever, Like that's where you
spend eternity, sometimes by no fault of your own. Like
this is where people who lived before Christ ever existed,
(28:57):
um go after they die, because they can't possibly have
been Christians, so they're not being punished, but they're not
being rewarded by you know, in heaven. It's kind of mean.
Purgatory is a place where you I guess have to
have been a Christian but maybe elapsed Christian, a Christian
who sin something like that, to where you can you
can work it off and and you know, go on
(29:21):
to heaven. And that's kind of that universalism or universal
salvation idea. It's like that's all there is. The hell
is purgatory where you can work it off over time
and and be saved. And then also really jibes too
with this idea chuck of Um of the Buddhist hell. Basically,
the Buddhists have a concept of hell where I think
(29:42):
called naraka, which is also a Hindu concept. But um,
there's this this idea that you're you're there for very
in in each of these hells. You have to go
through these hells, and your lifetime there's very specific, like
your your lifetime in this hell is one point six
two trillion years, and then the next hell is like,
(30:02):
you know, a quadrillion years or something like that. Um,
but you eventually work your karma off on Earth. And
if there's a real striking resemblance this Buddhist hell to
some you know, Christian and Jewish interpretations of hell, or
I should say some Christian interpretations of hell where you
can work off your bad deeds and then go on
to Nirvana or heaven. That's because they'll borrowed from one another,
(30:26):
it's really I mean, that's basically the fact of the
podcast is that there's a lot of um incestuous interchange
between the religions overlap, that's another way to put it.
What I think is also interesting is the concept of
temperature in hell. Um, it's a very big deal. You
(30:47):
always think of of fire and heat and sweatiness, but
that's not always the case. There are frozen hell's um
aside from you know, the Dakota's, Uh that Naraka you
were talking about. I think that's a frozen hell, right, Yeah,
there's eight hot hells and eight cold hells. And the
eight cold hells are like, in this one, your skin
(31:09):
starts a blister. In this one, it's so cold that
the blisters break, and then it just keeps going from there,
like all these horrible things happen to you from being
exposed to the cold. Yeah, it's very interesting. I guess
it's just sort of a variation of the same thing,
like something really cold can burn you. Yeah, but I
mean it really kind of gives you this idea, Chuck.
(31:30):
There's like so much thought has been given to all
the little horrible details of Hell, and I wonder, like
what what that satisfies? Like, couldn't you just be like, Okay,
we all believe that there's a hell and it's a
horrible place as bad as you can imagine. Just go
with that. What what was the purpose of going into
(31:51):
all this detail? I think this I think the specificity
if if Hell and the and sins on Earth are
to be punished in the afterlife. To me, it would
make sense that there would be a great specificity put
forward so people know exactly how bad it is, uh,
in order to inform their deeds on earth. Like it's
(32:14):
not just hey, it's a bad place. You don't want
to go there. It's like it's a place where your
skin will melt off and you will be you know,
you'll have to push this fireball around for eternity or whatever.
You know. Yeah, and then person, it's like fireball. That
sounds terrible, Like I was okay with with this thing,
but maybe I should get a better person. I guess
(32:34):
I won't steal this car after all. But it's all
like fear stuff and that you know that existed right
through my religion, you know, and we still exist today.
Do you remember roughly how old you were when you're like, oh,
I don't actually believe this anymore. I'm free. Uh. It's
started in sort of Middish high school, but I was
(32:56):
still sort of doing this stuff and hanging with a
certain crowds. Certain crowds do you mean, like the opposite
of certain crowds? No, you know, going to like young
life and uh a f C A and stuff like
that into early college, and the big transformation I think
I mentioned this before was when I took a religion
class in college, and I did learn that so much
(33:19):
of this stuff is kind of all the same and
borrowed from one another, and that is antithetical to grow
up in the Christian Baptist Church, where they're like, no, no, no,
this is the only truth. Everyone else is wrong. And
then when I said, well, wait about what about all
these other religions that are really really similar. Yeah, so
I had that was a big reckoning and then it
(33:40):
was just sort of gradual from there. Your comparative religion
class was taught by Professor Lewis Cipher. Oh man, he
had a he had a heck of a ponytail. I
just been out Cipher. I thought that was really clever
back when I saw that movie. Yeah, and looking back,
it's pretty dumb, wouldn't it, angel Hart, Yeah, I mean,
(34:03):
good enough movie, very much of its time. But I
remember thinking that Louis Cipher thing was like, whoa, right, right,
there's a restaurant I think in like d C. Maybe
Louis Cipher's yes, And I'm like, that's that's an unusual
choice to base your restaurant franchise on Satan. You know,
we love it. Should we take another break? Yeah, let's
(34:26):
all right, more judgment and punishment coming up right after this. Okay, Chuck,
(34:53):
you promised judgment, you promised punishment. Let's let's lay it
on us. Well, I mean, you know, this is like
you mentioned earlier in the Old Testament, like God directly
punished people, you could be smited or blinded or whatever.
And the New Testament is when things got a little
more organized, and it was literally like here's the sections
(35:14):
of hell. If you did this, you go here. If
you did this on Earth, you go there. Um. And
a lot of this is informed by writers um and
and not even like biblical scholars, like people like Plato
um And a lot of these stories again are really
really similar. There's a story from Plato's Republic where a
man named Er e Er goes into a coma, journeys
(35:39):
through the underworld and then wakes up and then tells
everyone what happened down there. And this has a lot
of reward and punishment included in a really organized system.
And there are a lot of stories really similar to
that um throughout time that you know, I don't know
if they were based on Plato or or the Republic
or just like we've been talking about, sort of overlapping incestuous.
(36:03):
I think you can make the case that they were
based on Plato because Plato he wasn't the first to
come up with the idea of the immortal soul. And UM,
they're they're being like judgment and torment, you know, potentially
afterward if not reward UM. But he really kind of
um boosted it. I guess he signaled boosted the idea
(36:23):
of an eternal soul impossible damn nation UM. And he
directly influenced uh St Augustin and Augustine. Uh definitely influenced
some of these later guys like drip Helm and tundale
Um and their idea of how but Augustine was influenced
(36:43):
by by Plato and Augustine had the other distinction along
with Um. I think Augustine and St. Gregory were really
kind of big time into that eternal damn nation idea.
But Augustine also was the one who basically said, this
is orth that I see, this is the correct interpretation
of the scripture. If you don't believe it, we we
(37:06):
are fine with inflicting violence upon you, that same tradition
of what you were saying, where this is the only
truth in anybody who believes anything else is wrong. That
finds its source at the very least, it finds its
early popularity from St. Augustine. So this idea of uh,
eternal damnation and if you don't believe in that, you're wrong,
(37:28):
that kind of finds its its place in the early
Christian Church, and I think the fifth century. And so
you do have these guys who came later, like drip
Helm and Tundale, who had nothing to do with scripture,
but their their experiences where basically they died and came
back to the life and said, there's a hell and
it's awful. Really kind of informed our idea of what
(37:48):
hell is like. And it seems to be based a
lot on this ide these ideas by Augustine, who got
his ideas from Plato, who got his ideas from God
knows who. God does know who. Uh. If you really
want to drill down though to um where we get
many many of our ideas of what we think of
as hell is Dante, of course, who we mentioned earlier.
(38:10):
Um I did not even know Dante's last name until uh,
until we researched this. But it's and there's gonna be
some great Italian coming up. Everyone but Dante Algieri in
his Divine Comedy and specifically Um Inferno. Dante's Inferno is
(38:30):
is really um really where we get a lot of
what we think of as hell today comes from Inferno
as far as and people even say without even knowing,
like the eighth circle of Hell and stuff like that.
Like I've been guilty of saying that my whole life
and not really understanding what the heck that even meant.
But what's interesting, too, is so Dante wrote the the Inferno, well,
(38:52):
he wrote the Divine Comedy UM in the early thirteen hundreds.
I guess it took him fifteen years um. And so
this is the undreds, and he writes about these nine
circles of Hell, the nine concentric circles of Hell, like
that is a really ancient concept, even though he divided
it and like really um enunciated all of the different
(39:14):
distinctions in a really popular way. Um. Like that that's
really old. Like think of that Naraka, there's eight hot
hot hells, there's eight cold hells. There's like this idea
of different stages, Like the minds even had this idea
where you progress through these different stages up the tree
of life from that that dark underworld. Um, that's a
(39:35):
really ancient idea. But yeah, Dante was definitely the one
who you would credit with this, you know, coming up
with it, even though it's totally wrong. Yeah, And it's
also important to remember when Dante wrote this stuff, it
was in it was the last fifteen years of his life,
and this was after he battled the pope and the
Catholic Church and was exiled from Florence. So a lot
(39:56):
of this stuff is just reeks of sort of having
a bone to pick and like, hey, the things that
happened to me, like they're going to be slotted in
like and it's almost like, uh like using his own
experience to to create the symbolism of like, this is
what happened to me, and that makes you the worst
(40:17):
person if you did these things exactly Like I'm going
to put you in hell in my book. And I'm
sure some of those people were alive and like, hey, man,
don't don't put me in hell, Like this is not
you can't do that, And he's like, I just did
you know here's a nice cube. Have fun. So he
um Dante. One of his big things and that I
(40:39):
think made his work so famous too, was he um
really got into contraposso you want to take that? No,
that was great, Um. I didn't even pinch my fingers
and thumb together. Uh. And contraposso is basically this this
poetic eye for an eye where you know if you
if you do this on earth, if you sin in
(40:59):
this way, your punishment is going to be some poetic
justice um in the afterlife. And that was the whole
point of of Hell as far as Dante was concerned.
It was where God got justice for things that were
done wrong here on earth. And apparently it said as much.
Over the gate of Hell Um it said you to
(41:23):
ze most say il mio alto fatore, which means justice
moved my high maker, Um, which is basically saying like,
this is what this place is for, is to get justice.
And there's also a very famous um inscription over the
gates of Hell abandoned all hope he who interheed, and
that came from Uh Dante's Inferno as well. How is
(41:43):
that what that's from? Mm hmmm. That's good stuff. It
really is It was also used to great effect in
Boondocks Saints So Dante and Virgil are um. Before they
even go to Hell, they have to cross the over
at Huron and deal with Sharon the boatman, which is
(42:06):
you know, I think this has been used a million
times too in literature and pop culture, like this, this
boat person that has to transport someone across this river
to a different place. Sometimes you have to pass a
test um, you know, like Monty Python style basically. And
that's so weird. Right as I said that, I just
(42:26):
looked up to our Aaron Cooper special Monty Python photoshop
poster where I'm King Arthur and you are one of
the nights. It's Stricklin is in there too, Yeah, isn't
he like the page with the coconuts? Yeah? And there
he else is over there. Now I'm looking at a
picture of me face punching George Lucas. You haven't been
(42:49):
in this room in a while, have you? No? No,
But I remember it pretty well. It's burned in your
brain after twelve years. Uh So where was I You
were talking about the river sticks and or Archer Honor,
and which is might as well be the River sticks? Right, right?
But it is. It's like straight up taken from the Greeks,
and yet this devout Christian Dante is is writing about
(43:12):
it like this the Christian Hell, And it really kind
of goes to to show you just how much literary
license he took with this well and how much um
he borrowed from the Greeks, because like you, you would
think this is probably the Christian stance on on hell,
and it's not um. Like, for instance, Dante sees uh
thinks that it's a virtue if you're have moderation in
(43:36):
your life, like you don't wanna be too spindy and greedy,
also don't want to be too miserly, But that's not
a Christian thing at all, Like that's not in the
Tin Commandments. It's not one of the seven Deadly sins
or anything like that. No, there's gluttony, but miserly nous
is not in there, right, Yeah, So he's definitely just
saying this is this is what I Dante think. But
(43:57):
I guess it just hit a nerve because I mean, like,
like we were saying at the outset like this is
this is just this is basically what people think of
when they think of hell. These days if not the
fire and the red pitchfork and all that. All right,
So first circle limbo, not purgatory like we mentioned. Uh,
this is where you can like it's it's not terrible,
(44:19):
but it is hell and it's sort of unfair like
you said, Uh, you know, if you're not like, you
could just be born before Christ and you can be
in limbo, right like Aristotle's there. Aristotle was great and
virtuous and one of the greatest thinkers the world's ever produced.
Yet he's stuck in limbo because he existed before Christ
so couldn't possibly be saved. So what's next? Lust is next?
(44:43):
And this is pretty interesting too in that, um, you know,
some other people who had seen visions of hell, like
the the you know, medieval nights we talked about earlier,
they're talking about like you know, oh yeah, they they
nail your sack to a board with rusty nails, are
just really juvenile stuff. Dante goes a lot more poetic,
(45:04):
and that his idea of lust is is their punishment
for lust is you know, lovers are blown about by
the wind so that they can never quite get together
and there's always you know, kept just just out of
each other's reach, which is you know, it's it's a
lot more poetic than than the other one. Did you say,
nail your sack to a board, Yeah, like your backpack? Yes, okay, okay,
(45:29):
all right. The third circle is gluttony. Uh. Here you're
stuck in the mud and it's you're being pummeled by
hail and freezing rain. And um, this is where he
got a little bit of his bone to pick out
on Florence and what a terrible place that was. Um.
The fourth circle is where we get into the greed
(45:51):
and the miserly. Um. Basically, um, it's the circle of moderation, like,
don't go too far in either direction. Yeah, And he
really kind of plays into that symmetry as well, where
on the one side are the people who are super
gluttonous and like they spend just tons of money, and
then on the other side there are the people who
are super stingy and hoard their money. They're really two
(46:12):
sides of the same coin. I think Dante is correct
in that sense, and so they're both in that same
circle of hell, but on opposite sides of the circle.
The number five is that, Yeah, that's that's where those
of us who are um who get road rage will
(46:33):
be potentually that's where I'm gonna be Unford, all right,
and you're in the river sticks in that case. Yeah,
I just losh it around, being like I'm so married
about everything. Uh, circle number six everyone. It feels like
a Dave Letterman Top ten does all of a sudden.
These are heretics, These are pagans, these are atheists. These
are people who, while they were on Earth, were like, Hey,
(46:54):
I'm just gonna have a good time while i'm here.
I'm not worried about salvation. Yeah, and Epicurious in particular,
Ler's there and I was like, why Epicurious? And apparently
he very much and his followers did not believe in
any kind of afterlife, which is why they're like, make
the most of your time here on earth. I guess
that's where I am. Yeah. Um. It's basically another way
(47:16):
to interpret that is that these were people who's so
discord by injecting alternative ideas into the believers minds. All right,
well maybe I'm not there then, um no. Like also,
if you if you don't believe in an afterlife and
you're enjoying your time here on earth, you go there
either way you're scrowgy. Either way, well, at least we'll
(47:36):
be there together. Um. We also, I don't think we
mentioned that Virgil, the poet virgil Um is the one
who's guiding Dante around through these these things, and I
guess it's kind of acting is like his um uh
oh what is the name of from New York Dolls
and scrooged buster point X. He's acting as Dante's buster
(47:59):
point decks um, and so virtual's escorting him around. They
get to the seventh circle of hell Um, which contains
the city of dis which dis or is this in
the sixth I think it's in the sixth Yeah comes
(48:20):
after Yeah, So the and so a lot of a
lot of people, um kind of chop up these circles
of hell into the first through third, the second through
the sixth, and the seventh through the ninth. And apparently
Dante considered basically the first through the six is all
kind of generally in the same category, which was they
were sins of incontinence where people just couldn't resist the
(48:45):
earthly temptations. They had a weakness of will. They're you know,
they're being tormented because they made these choices. But Also
this is really it's it's forgivable stuff. Seventh through nine
is where who he considers the the gen new in centers,
the evil people reside. Yeah, this is where arsonists and murderers.
(49:06):
Um that he actually framed, you know, suicide as one
of these Uh in that seventh circle, Um, the eighth circle,
and you know this is it gets a little confusing
because in their smaller pockets within these circles. Uh. And again,
if you're a scholar of Dante, just I'm so so sorry,
so sorry. Yeah, hopefully they turned this. But the eighth
(49:30):
circle is for ten kinds of fraud. And then the
ninth circle is finally where Satan is and this is
for for Satan and as the lead trader basically um,
not trader but trade or which is you know, this
is a big one for me. I mean as a
(49:50):
Pisces Uh Sabbath fan of Black Sabbath like loyalty and
um is very important. Broken trust is to me like
of the worst things someone can do. And so I
didn't realize that was picy in in nature. Yeah, pretty
pice in very loyal very friendships and relationships are sort
(50:11):
of the utmost importance to be betrayed is like just
kind of the worst thing you can do. So this
is this would be your your you'd really enjoy this. Yeah,
I mean, I guess that's my eighth circle. Um. But
it's interesting in that Satan, the ultimate trader to God,
is stuck there but could get out. Um. In theory,
(50:32):
if Satan just realized that, like, hey, I'm beneath God
and I can recognize God as being above me and
I am not God's equal. Um. And it's a frozen
it gets a little confusing, but it's a frozen lake.
It's a little antithetical to what we think about is
Satan is being fiery, because what happens is the lake
(50:53):
with thaw and free Satan. If he wasn't flapping his
big bat wings to try and fly up to God
to proof he's as equal, but instead of Satan's wings,
I guess throwing forth like fire what you would think
and actually I guess is icy and it just keeps
that like frozen. Right. But if he would just yeah,
if he'd just give up, then he'd stopped beating his
(51:14):
wings and then it wouldn't all right, yeah, and then
he would be free. But then he just wouldn't be
Satan anymore. You know what I mean, to be a
broken version of Satan, and who wants that? Right then
we wouldn't have Tommy Davis Junior TV pilot. Yeah, right, exactly. So,
I mean, it's not like our idea of Hell just
ended at Dante. But I was like, yep, that's it.
(51:35):
Don't need to add to it, Like plenty of people
have over time. One of the coolest I've seen I
cannot remember what it was, but I suspect that was
an aon flux Um cartoon on Remember Liquids on MTV.
I think somehow aon flux ended up in Hell and
(51:56):
like this, the the weird conception of it was just
so unsettling. Everything was just so off. It was really
well done, and I'll have to go, like see if
I can find it. All I could find was that
aon Flex the movie sucked. That's all you can find
when you search a on Flex in Hell right now.
But um, I really want to find that again. If
(52:16):
I do, I'll have to tweet it out. Yeah. I mean,
you could do a whole second podcast episode on popular
versions of Hell and pop culture and movies and TV
and literature. Paintings. Serronamous Bosh is a great example. Um.
I love those paintings. This was a couple of centuries
after Inferno. But these are the ones that look like
sort of in default album covers. Um. They're great, very
(52:39):
cool stuff. Uh. And you know, like I said, there's
scores of versions of Hell, from Clive Barker to Marvel
Comics Too, to Sammy Davis Jr. And The Good Place.
They're all over the place. So it's definitely something that's like,
I don't know, it's just weirdly captured pop cultures imagination,
(53:01):
just as much as it did thousands of years ago
with religion. You know, one of the greatest, one of
the other great um conceptions of the afterlife, not necessarily hell,
but hell ish um is found in this. I think
I've mentioned it before a Joyce Carol Oates short story
called night Side, where there's this um seance and like
the spirits that are contacted are like all freaked out
(53:23):
because there's no it's all just chaos. Nobody. I think
they keep saying, like no one's in charge and like
everything is just out of order. Um. And it's a
really like unsettling read like Joyce Killer Oates is so
good with horror, but that that particular one is super disturbing.
I highly recommend everybody reading it. Yeah, and if you
want to see a fun take on the afterlife, watch
(53:45):
the great Albert Brooks movie Defending Your Life. Oh my god,
that is such a great movie. One of the all
time great sleeper films ever, wonderful, so good. Yeah, that's
a good that's a treat right there. Good for you,
the great Albert Brooks. Yeah. Well, since Chuck can't stop
talking about Albert Brooks, I think that means it's time
for listener. Ma'm fun. Fact a lot of people know this.
(54:09):
Albert Brooks born Albert Einstein. No, yes, no, yes, brother
of super Dave Osborne. I guess I had known that,
but only when Super Dave died recently, right, uh, yeah,
he did die. Their birth name was Einstein. I think
I think Super Dave Osborne was super Dave Einstein. No,
(54:30):
I think it was Bob Einstein. And I don't know.
I think so, I don't know, but that he's like
from the Larry Bud Melman era of Letterman and yeah,
good stuff. Oh yeah, So if you want to know
more about Hell, just start sending your a off and
you'll find out about it soon enough. And like I said,
(54:52):
since Chuck keeps talking about Albert Brooks, it is time
for a listener. Man. Yeah, I'm gonna call this one
of our great senior listeners. Uh. And this this lady
is from Australia. Hello, guys. I'm an eighty year old
woman in aged care. My life was very mundane and
quite boring. I finally bought a mobility scooter now uh
and I could get out and ride the wonderful pathways
(55:14):
and visit the shops. My son Robert, thought I needed
more interest, so he hooked my phone up to Josh
and Chuck podcasts. Wow, all capitals. How I love riding
around on my scooter and listening to your wonderful humor
and mostly interesting things in quotes. I love it. So
perhaps she even has the book. I have learned so
(55:35):
much about everything, love Elvis, visiting Nixon for a NARC, Badge,
Building Boulder, Damn, Francis Perkins, etcetera. Just everything. Guys, keep
up the good work. Cheers from Glenda on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Very nice. That was Glenda write. Yeah, I just love
(55:56):
hearing from Glinda. She's great. Thank you, Glenda. Yeah, I
think Glenda should write in every once in a while.
I was just say hi and talk about her favorite
recent episode. I would love What do you think, Glenda,
if you're listening, please do that and what was her son?
Richard Robert Robert Robert. Thank you for turning your mom
onto stuff you should Know. Um, well, if you wanna
(56:20):
talk about how you turn somebody onto stuff you should know,
we would love to hear about that. That's great. You
can write us in an email, wrap it up, spank
it on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff
Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(56:42):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w St. Chuck Bryant uh, and st. Jerome
Rowland is out there as well. I'm not a staying
(00:22):
I'm sinner. Uh. And this is stuff you should know.
The first real episode of the New Year, it is Chuck.
It's uh beyond the future now, It's that's so futuristic,
no one ever even used it in a sci fi book.
That's right. We we had our are what we like
to call our elementary school Christmas break, which means it's
(00:45):
about three and a half weeks long. We worked hard
for that. We do, so you better treat us, right.
That's that's right. How was your holiday? Good? It was good.
I've I finally got to just kind of disconnect and
decouple and just relax. And it was not Actually I
went I went the entire time without cracking my computer open.
(01:07):
I was really proud of that. Yeah, I couldn't believe it.
Like I did stuff on my phone that I needed to,
but I just there was a ban on opening my laptops,
even just for funzies. Yeah, no, poin didn't. I didn't
want to write. I didn't want to see uh computer
or a keyboard for a little while, and I was
able to do it. Yeah, that I just did. The
(01:28):
porn was all just like I just made drawings myself, right,
flip books. I uh loved doing things in my laptop.
But I was proud of myself for not looking at
any work emails. I did a little bit at first, because,
as you know, some buttoning up into the year stuff.
But then I was just like, you know what, and
(01:49):
you know what I put as my I mean, you've
seen my occasional auto reply, which is, uh, if it's
an emergency, please realize that there are no podcast emergency,
which is sort of true. It's I think true. Actually.
And you got your slide whistle. I did. I don't
(02:10):
have it with me right now or else. I dang,
we got a debut the slide whistle later because I
got to hear that thing. Yes, we do, thank you
for that. Did you get your gift from me? I did? Okay, good.
I thought that that you would find that wildly appropriate
and it helped out our buddy too. That's right. Um.
And so we're just gonna wade into some easy, easy
(02:33):
waters here with hell. Hell. This is tough. Man. I
was like, who's dumb idea was this? And I realized
it was mine? Uh so I never forgot. Yeah, the
c I a here is is that. I mean, people
like I think the Grabster helped us put this together.
He said, people make their entire careers out of just
(02:54):
Dante's Inferno, much less concepts of Hell. And uh it
is very broad and dense and confusing, and so this
is sort of a just a stuff you shouldn't know
stab at it. Yeah, and let me just add to
that that we are in no way, shape or form
biblical scholars, theologians. We're gonna get a lot of stuff wrong.
(03:15):
We're probably gonna walk right past interpretations they're popular and
widely accepted. We were like, this is this is just
us talking about hell, So just relax. We already know
we're going to hell, so there's nothing you can do
to us that's any worse. Um, So just calm down
and enjoy the episode. How about that? Enjoy this episode
about eternal conscious torment. Yeah, and if you are a
(03:37):
scholar of Dante, just don't even listen. Yeah, you will
literally puke into your cupped hands while you're listening to
this on the train because you're that polite. That's right,
go back and listen to the Science of Cute again. Um. Wow,
that was that was a reference to something that doesn't
even exist yet. That's hetty. Yeah, So Chuck, I want
(03:58):
to talk first. I'm mentioned eternal conscious torment, and that
is kind of like the the broad spectrum of what
most people walking around today in the Western world, whether
they're Christian or just familiar with the Christian concept of hell,
think of hell. It's where your your soul is tormented,
(04:20):
beaten up, bullied, um, maybe talked about behind its back, uh,
set on fire. Um. And in this in this state, um,
there's no dying, there's no death of the soul. The
soul is immortal. So this, this pain, this torment, this
horrible nous just keeps going on forever and ever and ever.
And that is that's that comes directly from St. Augustine,
(04:43):
who kind of plays big into this concept of hell.
But the idea that there's an immortal soul, that it
goes somewhere after death, and that depending on how it
behaved here on earth, um, it may or may not
face eternal conscious torment. That is seriously, it's the theological
term that they used today that strikes some people, some theologians,
is wildly disproportionate to the kinds of sins we're talking
(05:08):
about here, Like like you over indulged in fudge brownie
mix during your time on Earth means that you're going
to be to just suffer a literal, not never ending, infinite,
eternal torment of damnation because you over indulged in brownie mix.
That just doesn't quite jibe for some people. So there
(05:30):
there have been other alternatives that were posed many many
years ago, that were actually around in some cases before
eternal conscious torment came around. Um that some people are saying, like, hey,
maybe this is a better interpretation of what's actually going
on with Hell. Are you familiar with those other interpretations well?
Which ones, uh, namely universalism and annihilationism. Mm hmm. This
(05:57):
was that thing that I was saying, we got to
talk about these such check this out. I'm gonna let
me wow you for a second, okay, because these are
to me, the softer, gentler versions of hell. One is
that the universalism. Another terms universal salvation, and it's this
idea that there is an end, there's a there's a
(06:18):
finite date to the to the torment, and that you're
basically going to hell depending on how badly you sinned.
But over time you can kind of work that sin
off and you will eventually come out the other end
saved and go to heaven. And that that happens to everybody.
Everyone is is it can possibly go to heaven through
(06:41):
this idea. The other is annihilationism, which makes a lot
of sense to if you believe in this kind of stuff. That, um,
the people who are saved, the righteous, the virtuous, people
who are going to go to heaven, they go on
to heaven after they die. Everybody else just ceases to exist.
They're annihilated upon death. No hell, but there's no heavenly
(07:02):
reward for those people. I like those a lot more
than eternal conscious torment. The thing is, eternal conscious torment
is so gripping. Yeah, that it's it's like this is
this is this is just what people think of when
they think of hell. And apparently, if you're an evangelical
in particular and you believe in anything but eternal conscious torment,
(07:23):
you're you're you're flirting with being shunned by your peers
because you're you're going in the face of Orthodoxy. Well, yeah,
I mean, you know, it's it's a lot to unpack.
I know, you grew up fairly Catholic, and I've regret
how many times I've had to say the word Baptist
on this show. I feel like there's a lot of
(07:43):
people taking a shot right now if this is the
stuff you should know, drinking game. But I can't not
mention that growing up Baptist, it's a very uh, you know,
it's a very fiery, brimstony um religion and it's um.
I very much up with the concept, this very sort
of trophy concept of heaven is this um you know,
(08:07):
lovely place where God lives. It's in the up there
in the clouds, and you go up and then if
you're not good, then you go down to somewhere, I
guess in the center of the earth where the devil
lives and where Satan pokes you, and where you are
you know, there's lakes of fire and it's all very
scary and and you know, it wasn't until I got
(08:29):
a little bit older that I realized that these are
stories told to get children in line. Yeah, and not
just children, adults who go on to continue to believe
in how you know and and to subscribe to this stuff.
For sure, it's definitely a way to keep people in line.
But the concept of hell generally in the concept of souls. Uh.
(08:49):
And this is probably no surprise to most um sort
of critical thinkers. But you know, the the idea of
being worm dirt and after you die, that's just it
is a lot to take gone as you approached that day. Yeah,
so it is really it makes a lot of sense.
I think that people from very early on started to
think about the concept of a soul um, a self
(09:11):
that lived on um. And you know, it just makes
sense that there's a quote good place in a bad place. Yeah.
But the thing is is, apparently it doesn't seem to
have necessarily been just like part and parcels. From from
what Ed's saying and from what I saw elsewhere in
the research, is that heaven seemed to have developed first
(09:34):
very early on, and then there was a real emphasis
on symmetry in the ancient and in like pre modern world,
where if you had one you had the opposite and
equal proportions. So eventually over time that kind of was
like well, if there's this really lovely place that's like
paradise after you die, then there has to be the
opposite of that, the antithesis of that too, And that's
(09:56):
where this development of hell came from. But the fact
that hell wasn't hasn't always been around her as long
as you know, the idea of the afterlife, and then
the idea that it wasn't ever hasn't always been this
place where you're you were subject to the most cruel
kinds of punishments available to to the human imagination. Right. Yeah, Um,
(10:18):
that that's not that's not as old as as the
idea of the afterlife either. That that was really surprising
to me. But it's it's pretty neat because it's weird.
It's almost like humanity got infected by a germ of
real meanness and in darkness that we're still living with today,
(10:38):
and that you could kind of trace it in in
the evolution of our idea of hell as well or
to the beginnings of Twitter. That's that's right. So, uh,
that's evil incarnate. It depends on what religions you're talking about,
but virtually every religion has some sort of afterlife concept. Um.
Early judy is Um. Of course certainly does. If you
(11:02):
read back, um ed described something from the Sumerian underworld,
where they kind of more talk about hell as uh
or the afterlife I guess is just sort of boring. Uh.
And there wasn't you know, you didn't go to a
fiery place where you're tormented. Um. They talk about, you know,
being thirsty and eating dust. Certainly unpleasant. Um. But then
(11:23):
this idea starts where you can be in a better
place in the afterlife according to what you've achieved on earth,
but not necessarily good deeds at first. Like if you're
really rich, then you're gonna go to a good place
because your family could afford to bury you with food
and drink and jewels and gold and stuff like that
(11:46):
to carry with you to the other side, and that
would put you in a much better standing. But again,
this is not like I was a good person. This
is just I died rich. So all these really valuable
things they could put underground and bury with me. Right,
But in the same way to the living could care
for you. They could. You might not be rich, but
your family might care so much about you that they
(12:08):
come on every Sunday whatever they called Sunday's back when
the Sumerians were running around, um and bring you like
a little food and a little beer or something like that.
And and they were sustaining you in this place where
everybody else was eating dust and dirt. But your family
so loved you because you've been such a good person
during your time while you were alive, that they were
(12:30):
coming and bringing you like bread and beer. Um. And
in that sense, also, Chuck, is really kind of poetic
because you, that person, are living on in the memories
of your family after you died, because they're coming and
keeping your memory alive by bringing you bread and beer
and all that. And so in that way, you are
living on in this kind of immortal means as well.
(12:52):
But the converse of that is really disturbing, and that
if you don't inspire people to care about you afterwards,
like you really ceased to exist, like there's there's there's
no one on earth who's thinking of you, are honoring you.
And in that sense, if there is no afterlife you you,
that is annihilation. That is true oblivion. What Disney or
Pixar movie is it? I saw it recently, that has
(13:15):
to do it. It's brutal um like you're being erased
and until you're remembered after death, Eternal Sunshine, the Spotless Mind.
Now I know it's called inside out. Maybe no, that's
the one about the emotions, which is equally brutal. Yeah,
I don't think that. I thought her. I thought the
kids like imaginary friend was being erased or demolished. And
(13:37):
then was that in that movie? I think so? Yeah,
remember the elephant that was like George Clooney's friend Richard
has it right now? It certainly seems that, Oh, I
can't remember. And this is officially marks the first podcast
of the year where people are screaming at us, which
is coincidentally the first podcast of the year that we record.
(14:00):
That's right. Um, I think it's Egypt, Ancient Egypt, where
the first the first idea of like, um, this this
weird sort of afterlife, uh judgment panel sort of steps
in where you know, there are people like literally in
charge of this thing, almost like a bureaucracy, and there's
an administration and it's it sounds a little bit more
(14:22):
like Sammy David's JRS sitcom pilot that failed. Oh yeah,
I forgot about that. She Devil. I don't remember it.
Definitely wasn't she devil? That was wasn't it was something
like that though, Yeah, but it was that was pretty good.
The show was, I mean the the like one minute
trailer I saw me pretty good. Um. But this, you know,
(14:46):
the ancient Judaism sort of overlaps with some of this stuff.
But Judaism is a it's a it's a whole different
thing because you know, they have references. There's a lot
of references to things that were later just sort of
rewritten and reach translated as hell, which makes it really
confusing if you look at ancient texts. Yeah, Judaism head shield, um,
(15:07):
which is it kind of follows in that same tradition, uh,
from the pre Christian era that like when you died,
there was an afterlife and there wasn't much to it.
It wasn't but it wasn't it wasn't particularly pleasant. Yeah.
Apparently to the to the the early Jews, they were
they were basically saying like this is it's the state
(15:29):
of mind after death more than like if interdimensional like
physical place that exists outside of this world, not like
a realm. But yeah, like you're saying like a, yeah,
like I guess a state of mind as far as
as that as that goes. But it also suggests that
you still have a mind after you die well, and
(15:50):
it also suggests that um, I mean, there's a little
bit of the punishment and reward, but it's not necessarily
you go to the fiery place or you go to
have and it's a little more of a spiritual connection,
like if you did good on earth, you're gonna spend
your afterlife a little closer to God. If you're not
such a great person, you're gonna be, you know, a
(16:10):
little further away from God, right, right. But but overall,
the point of she'all was that no matter what you
did on earth, no matter who you were, good person,
bad person, doesn't matter, you were going to go to
the same place. And even at the time, apparently they
realized that this was unjust. There's like a part of
(16:32):
I think Ecclesiastes that says that the fact that there
are that everybody goes to the same place, no matter
how good or bad you are in life. This is
the injustice that is done under the sun. The same
fate comes to everyone, which I didn't realize that Ecclesiastes rhyme,
but it's got a nice, nice beat to it, nice tempo.
Does it doesn't all rhyme? Does it? I don't think so.
(16:55):
I was kind of surprised at any of it rhyme.
But there's that That's a really important point, Chuck that
um to these ancient people, whether they were the early
Jews or the Canaanites or um or the Egyptians, there
was there was not punishment in the afterlife. God punished
you during life like you you were suddenly you know,
(17:15):
like directing or something like that. That was punishment from God.
As we kind of evolved away from that, the idea
that God had a direct daily hand in our lives
as a as a a species, that punishment moved to
the afterlife rather than during this life, right, which is
not recognized. And Judaism of course as New Testament stuff now,
(17:38):
And there was something else that stuck out to me
is well, we'll kind of see in a second. Judaism
seems to have been developed as a religion um as
as contrary to some of the other religious beliefs that
were around, Like they seem to have really kind of
opposed the Canaanites. The Canaanites were into child sacrifice. They um,
(18:00):
they had multiple gods, um. And the Jews kind of
played off of that, like some of these these devils
that we understand today, demons like malok and by all
you know, be a apostrophe a l um, those were
actually Canaanite gods, and they kind of perverted the pronunciation
(18:21):
of them to kind of mock them or make them
seem other or different. Um. And you think, like, well,
that's not very nice. That's one religion disparaging another. But
at the same time, the early Jews were saying like, also,
we shouldn't be sacrificing children, like that's not that's not
a good thing to do. Let's practice this other thing instead.
(18:42):
So I'm I'm kind of a fan of the the
of early Judaism. It turns out I had no idea
you should convert. I just might. Should we take a break.
I think we should. All right, let's take a break.
We'll read up a little bit on whether or not
you're allowed to convert, because I don't even know, and
then we'll be back right after this. Have you converted?
(19:25):
I looked it up. I'm not allowed to. It would
require me to be religious. Oh well, interesting. Uh So
we talked a little bit about the sort of the
confusion of I mean, a lot of the confusion in
what we think of as hell lies in um. Just
these these texts, some Hebrew text and translations and miss
translations and stories that are told, you know, the old
(19:48):
game of telephone that happened throughout the years while these
things were passed on. So there's a lot of things
that you know over the years that you've thought of
sort of as a generic hell, like Haiti, which was Greek,
the Greek underworld um also synonymous with the shield, but
not Hell. Uh. There's Tartarus that's in the Old Testament,
(20:10):
also from the Greeks, that more closely resembles Hell from
what I could tell. Yeah, and that's like a part
of the underworld where God's in prison enemies. Um. There
is like punishment, it's fiery and maybe that concept and
like a lot of this what we're doing is sort
of unpacking what we think of as hell now and
sort of where this stuff came from. And it seems
(20:31):
like Tartarus is uh is definitely one of those places. Yeah,
And like Hades and she all more closely resemble purgatory
um or Limbo, where Tartarus. Yes, is definitely hell. Hell,
Like that's where torment and fire is and all all
this stuff that's really kind of like popped up to me.
It's like, wow, this is like are what we think
(20:55):
of as hell today? Even like the cartoon Hell with
like the pitchfork in the fire and all that stuff.
This is some ancient stuff that it's built on. Over
EON's you know, like the earliest people who started burying
their dead because they thought like maybe there was a
life afterward. And it just kind of evolved from that, Colonel,
and more and more civilizations came along and added to
(21:17):
it and subtracted to it and said no, you're wrong,
No you're wrong, and let's go to war over this.
Like Hell is like this hammered steel drum that's been
hammered out by you know, millennia of of people and cultures,
and it sounds pretty good. Yeah. I thought you were
about to say by John Bonham did he play a
(21:38):
steel drum? No, but it just you sounded it sounded
like the intro to it led Zeppelin song their first
second um Gehenna is something else we should mention. This
is another kind of quote unquote hell um But this
was a real place. It was a literal place near
Jerusalem where it sounds like it was kind of a
uh some sort of ancient uh almost the word I'm
(22:01):
looking for, not necessarily a where where do you take
all the trash? Episode about it? Land land? Yeah, sort
of a landfill on fire. Okay, that's one interpretation, which
is a great record title. I think landfill, Yeah, why not?
But this is where they like would take stuff to burn, um,
(22:21):
trash basically. And uh there might have also been child
sacrifice happening there because I guess they figured, well, there's
a fire already happening, so we won't have to start one. Um.
It depends on what source you're looking at. But it
became a metaphorical hell where a place that was on fire.
You could be sent there. It was a place of judgment,
you could be cast into it. Uh. And that's in
(22:43):
the New Testament of course. Um. So that's another sort
of hades like um, I guess usage that just makes
it all the more confusing. Yeah. But again, like like
you know, as we're getting further and further along and
deeper and deeper into Christianity, which we haven't quite hit yet,
when Gehennah was first introduced because I think that's Jewish, right,
(23:06):
It's like a Jewish So even though it is in
the New Testament um, which has even more confusing right,
but it kind of shows you how like connected, like
these these civilizations and groups were over the ages, you
know that this still popped up just borrowing things from
one another exactly. But then as these translations, you know,
kind of go on over the centuries and there's newer
(23:27):
and different versions of the Bible and the New Testament,
the Old Testament, like you know, all these things just
become this generic Hell, which kind of opens it up two,
making how this big, huge, amorphous place where oh, it's
like this, but it's also like this, and it's like that.
And by naming everything just Hell and losing that kind
(23:49):
of the ethnicity involved, the Christians were able to kind
of wholesale adopt all of these ancient traditions and conceptions
of Hell into their own version of Hell. And this
is the Christian Hell, whereas if you kind of start
poking behind it, you're like, oh, this is this Christian
Hell is made up of all these other conceptions of
hell along the way. So as far as like uh,
(24:12):
and I love that Ed calls a section the topology
of Hell, but that's sort of you know, a big
part of it is um. And we mentioned a little
bit Heaven as this place where God lives that's above you,
up in the sky because it's pretty no one really
knows exactly where all that comes from, but it all
does make sense UM that you know, you look to
(24:32):
the skies when you pray, you look up when you're
talking to God. And if that's the case, then it
makes sense that, like you said, with the symmetry, that
there is another place we bury the dead underground, it
makes sense that there would be a place that's deep
and dark and fiery. I guess you know, cave like
deep underground. That stuff is scary. So it makes sense
(24:55):
that Hell just sort of became this place that's uh,
for lack of a better word, under our eat somewhere. Yeah.
And what was interesting to me is that like disconnected
UM groups and cultures, not just geographically but through time
as well, all had that same conception that like Hell
was underground and Heaven was somewhere above us or in
(25:17):
the sky. UM like the Mayan's had a place called Shebalba,
which is like I guess translates to a place of fear,
and that is when you die. You start out there
and it's underground, and it's hellish and scary, and you
have to work your way up basically into the sky
to paradise. Um, and she all was underground. It was
(25:37):
connected to the grave, and that seems to be where
this idea also not just that heaven was in the sky,
so hell must be underground, but also that there has
to be some connection underground because we've been burying people
or at least putting our dead in you know, deep
dark caves for at least a hundred and thirty thousand
(25:59):
years from what I seen, but um, it may even
go back before that. In Neanderthals, I think buried they're dead.
Even so, it's a really kind of ancient impulse to
like put your dead underground or in some some underground,
subterranean place like a cave chamber. So of course that
would be connected to the afterlife in some way. But
it is interesting that it's like, as far as I
(26:20):
can tell, there's not a single culture that's like, oh, yeah,
that's where heaven is is underground. Yeah, And it's like
I find myself saying, well, it makes sense because you
climb your way out of hell with good works towards heaven.
Like it's sort of a chicken or the egg thing,
Like it makes sense to me, But it only makes
sense because that's the way it's always been framed. Yeah,
there's a few thousand years of culture behind that, that
(26:44):
way that you were raised or I was raised, you know. Yeah,
so you mentioned purgatory. Um, this is the realm of
the afterlife. Uh, purgatory is um. It's like a waiting
room where you were waiting to be judged. Um. It
is not. It's not like a great place. It's not
like an awesome waiting room with like the best magazines.
(27:04):
It's more like the waiting room with umoylights and high lights, right,
nothing but highlights and boys life and all of the
puzzles are already filled out. Yeah or oh man. The
worst is any doctor's office where it's nothing but like
medical and health magazines. Like, no one wants to read
that stuff in there, No they don't. You want to
read a three year old sports illustrated right, and everybody
(27:27):
else in the waiting room is not wearing a mask.
Oh no, thank you. It's it's the version of hell. Dude.
That's my new nightmare. I've had having those about three
times a week where I'm being descended upon. There they
seem like zombies, but they're just people without mask right,
it's weird potato potato. But you know what's funny? Has
(27:49):
this has happened to you where you where you watch
like movies or TV shows or something pre COVID and
it's like you're way too close to that person. Get back,
like we have been changed, man, possibly for ever. Oh
I think you'd be surprised how quickly we'll forget. I
hope so, oh man, I hope, so, I hope this
all just becomes like some bad dream that just fades
over time. And now my mom's getting vaccinated this Saturday.
(28:11):
Good for her, Jack, she needs to do live on
Instagram or something. Yeah. She was like, you know, should
I have any reservations? It was like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
And she's like, well then I mean I have to
wait in line. You're like, oh, those reservations, make reservations,
make reservations, but yes, stuck. Being stuck in purgatory is
not a good thing. Um, so it's not it's not hell,
(28:34):
but it's not someplace where you want to be. That's
why people you know, use that term now like I'm
in purgatory. Yeah, And there's something about purgatory that hadn't
really realized it. It's not interchangeable with limbo. When you
go into limbo, you're there forever, Like that's where you
spend eternity, sometimes by no fault of your own. Like
this is where people who lived before Christ ever existed,
(28:57):
um go after they die, because they can't possibly have
been Christians, so they're not being punished, but they're not
being rewarded by you know, in heaven. It's kind of mean.
Purgatory is a place where you I guess have to
have been a Christian but maybe elapsed Christian, a Christian
who sin something like that, to where you can you
can work it off and and you know, go on
(29:21):
to heaven. And that's kind of that universalism or universal
salvation idea. It's like that's all there is. The hell
is purgatory where you can work it off over time
and and be saved. And then also really jibes too
with this idea chuck of Um of the Buddhist hell. Basically,
the Buddhists have a concept of hell where I think
(29:42):
called naraka, which is also a Hindu concept. But um,
there's this this idea that you're you're there for very
in in each of these hells. You have to go
through these hells, and your lifetime there's very specific, like
your your lifetime in this hell is one point six
two trillion years, and then the next hell is like,
(30:02):
you know, a quadrillion years or something like that. Um,
but you eventually work your karma off on Earth. And
if there's a real striking resemblance this Buddhist hell to
some you know, Christian and Jewish interpretations of hell, or
I should say some Christian interpretations of hell where you
can work off your bad deeds and then go on
to Nirvana or heaven. That's because they'll borrowed from one another,
(30:26):
it's really I mean, that's basically the fact of the
podcast is that there's a lot of um incestuous interchange
between the religions overlap, that's another way to put it.
What I think is also interesting is the concept of
temperature in hell. Um, it's a very big deal. You
(30:47):
always think of of fire and heat and sweatiness, but
that's not always the case. There are frozen hell's um
aside from you know, the Dakota's, Uh that Naraka you
were talking about. I think that's a frozen hell, right, Yeah,
there's eight hot hells and eight cold hells. And the
eight cold hells are like, in this one, your skin
(31:09):
starts a blister. In this one, it's so cold that
the blisters break, and then it just keeps going from there,
like all these horrible things happen to you from being
exposed to the cold. Yeah, it's very interesting. I guess
it's just sort of a variation of the same thing,
like something really cold can burn you. Yeah, but I
mean it really kind of gives you this idea, Chuck.
(31:30):
There's like so much thought has been given to all
the little horrible details of Hell, and I wonder, like
what what that satisfies? Like, couldn't you just be like, Okay,
we all believe that there's a hell and it's a
horrible place as bad as you can imagine. Just go
with that. What what was the purpose of going into
(31:51):
all this detail? I think this I think the specificity
if if Hell and the and sins on Earth are
to be punished in the afterlife. To me, it would
make sense that there would be a great specificity put
forward so people know exactly how bad it is, uh,
in order to inform their deeds on earth. Like it's
(32:14):
not just hey, it's a bad place. You don't want
to go there. It's like it's a place where your
skin will melt off and you will be you know,
you'll have to push this fireball around for eternity or whatever.
You know. Yeah, and then person, it's like fireball. That
sounds terrible, Like I was okay with with this thing,
but maybe I should get a better person. I guess
(32:34):
I won't steal this car after all. But it's all
like fear stuff and that you know that existed right
through my religion, you know, and we still exist today.
Do you remember roughly how old you were when you're like, oh,
I don't actually believe this anymore. I'm free. Uh. It's
started in sort of Middish high school, but I was
(32:56):
still sort of doing this stuff and hanging with a
certain crowds. Certain crowds do you mean, like the opposite
of certain crowds? No, you know, going to like young
life and uh a f C A and stuff like
that into early college, and the big transformation I think
I mentioned this before was when I took a religion
class in college, and I did learn that so much
(33:19):
of this stuff is kind of all the same and
borrowed from one another, and that is antithetical to grow
up in the Christian Baptist Church, where they're like, no, no, no,
this is the only truth. Everyone else is wrong. And
then when I said, well, wait about what about all
these other religions that are really really similar. Yeah, so
I had that was a big reckoning and then it
(33:40):
was just sort of gradual from there. Your comparative religion
class was taught by Professor Lewis Cipher. Oh man, he
had a he had a heck of a ponytail. I
just been out Cipher. I thought that was really clever
back when I saw that movie. Yeah, and looking back,
it's pretty dumb, wouldn't it, angel Hart, Yeah, I mean,
(34:03):
good enough movie, very much of its time. But I
remember thinking that Louis Cipher thing was like, whoa, right, right,
there's a restaurant I think in like d C. Maybe
Louis Cipher's yes, And I'm like, that's that's an unusual
choice to base your restaurant franchise on Satan. You know,
we love it. Should we take another break? Yeah, let's
(34:26):
all right, more judgment and punishment coming up right after this. Okay, Chuck,
(34:53):
you promised judgment, you promised punishment. Let's let's lay it
on us. Well, I mean, you know, this is like
you mentioned earlier in the Old Testament, like God directly
punished people, you could be smited or blinded or whatever.
And the New Testament is when things got a little
more organized, and it was literally like here's the sections
(35:14):
of hell. If you did this, you go here. If
you did this on Earth, you go there. Um. And
a lot of this is informed by writers um and
and not even like biblical scholars, like people like Plato
um And a lot of these stories again are really
really similar. There's a story from Plato's Republic where a
man named Er e Er goes into a coma, journeys
(35:39):
through the underworld and then wakes up and then tells
everyone what happened down there. And this has a lot
of reward and punishment included in a really organized system.
And there are a lot of stories really similar to
that um throughout time that you know, I don't know
if they were based on Plato or or the Republic
or just like we've been talking about, sort of overlapping incestuous.
(36:03):
I think you can make the case that they were
based on Plato because Plato he wasn't the first to
come up with the idea of the immortal soul. And UM,
they're they're being like judgment and torment, you know, potentially
afterward if not reward UM. But he really kind of
um boosted it. I guess he signaled boosted the idea
(36:23):
of an eternal soul impossible damn nation UM. And he
directly influenced uh St Augustin and Augustine. Uh definitely influenced
some of these later guys like drip Helm and tundale
Um and their idea of how but Augustine was influenced
(36:43):
by by Plato and Augustine had the other distinction along
with Um. I think Augustine and St. Gregory were really
kind of big time into that eternal damn nation idea.
But Augustine also was the one who basically said, this
is orth that I see, this is the correct interpretation
of the scripture. If you don't believe it, we we
(37:06):
are fine with inflicting violence upon you, that same tradition
of what you were saying, where this is the only
truth in anybody who believes anything else is wrong. That
finds its source at the very least, it finds its
early popularity from St. Augustine. So this idea of uh,
eternal damnation and if you don't believe in that, you're wrong,
(37:28):
that kind of finds its its place in the early
Christian Church, and I think the fifth century. And so
you do have these guys who came later, like drip
Helm and Tundale, who had nothing to do with scripture,
but their their experiences where basically they died and came
back to the life and said, there's a hell and
it's awful. Really kind of informed our idea of what
(37:48):
hell is like. And it seems to be based a
lot on this ide these ideas by Augustine, who got
his ideas from Plato, who got his ideas from God
knows who. God does know who. Uh. If you really
want to drill down though to um where we get
many many of our ideas of what we think of
as hell is Dante, of course, who we mentioned earlier.
(38:10):
Um I did not even know Dante's last name until uh,
until we researched this. But it's and there's gonna be
some great Italian coming up. Everyone but Dante Algieri in
his Divine Comedy and specifically Um Inferno. Dante's Inferno is
(38:30):
is really um really where we get a lot of
what we think of as hell today comes from Inferno
as far as and people even say without even knowing,
like the eighth circle of Hell and stuff like that.
Like I've been guilty of saying that my whole life
and not really understanding what the heck that even meant.
But what's interesting, too, is so Dante wrote the the Inferno, well,
(38:52):
he wrote the Divine Comedy UM in the early thirteen hundreds.
I guess it took him fifteen years um. And so
this is the undreds, and he writes about these nine
circles of Hell, the nine concentric circles of Hell, like
that is a really ancient concept, even though he divided
it and like really um enunciated all of the different
(39:14):
distinctions in a really popular way. Um. Like that that's
really old. Like think of that Naraka, there's eight hot
hot hells, there's eight cold hells. There's like this idea
of different stages, Like the minds even had this idea
where you progress through these different stages up the tree
of life from that that dark underworld. Um, that's a
(39:35):
really ancient idea. But yeah, Dante was definitely the one
who you would credit with this, you know, coming up
with it, even though it's totally wrong. Yeah, And it's
also important to remember when Dante wrote this stuff, it
was in it was the last fifteen years of his life,
and this was after he battled the pope and the
Catholic Church and was exiled from Florence. So a lot
(39:56):
of this stuff is just reeks of sort of having
a bone to pick and like, hey, the things that
happened to me, like they're going to be slotted in
like and it's almost like, uh like using his own
experience to to create the symbolism of like, this is
what happened to me, and that makes you the worst
(40:17):
person if you did these things exactly Like I'm going
to put you in hell in my book. And I'm
sure some of those people were alive and like, hey, man,
don't don't put me in hell, Like this is not
you can't do that, And he's like, I just did
you know here's a nice cube. Have fun. So he
um Dante. One of his big things and that I
(40:39):
think made his work so famous too, was he um
really got into contraposso you want to take that? No,
that was great, Um. I didn't even pinch my fingers
and thumb together. Uh. And contraposso is basically this this
poetic eye for an eye where you know if you
if you do this on earth, if you sin in
(40:59):
this way, your punishment is going to be some poetic
justice um in the afterlife. And that was the whole
point of of Hell as far as Dante was concerned.
It was where God got justice for things that were
done wrong here on earth. And apparently it said as much.
Over the gate of Hell Um it said you to
(41:23):
ze most say il mio alto fatore, which means justice
moved my high maker, Um, which is basically saying like,
this is what this place is for, is to get justice.
And there's also a very famous um inscription over the
gates of Hell abandoned all hope he who interheed, and
that came from Uh Dante's Inferno as well. How is
(41:43):
that what that's from? Mm hmmm. That's good stuff. It
really is It was also used to great effect in
Boondocks Saints So Dante and Virgil are um. Before they
even go to Hell, they have to cross the over
at Huron and deal with Sharon the boatman, which is
(42:06):
you know, I think this has been used a million
times too in literature and pop culture, like this, this
boat person that has to transport someone across this river
to a different place. Sometimes you have to pass a
test um, you know, like Monty Python style basically. And
that's so weird. Right as I said that, I just
(42:26):
looked up to our Aaron Cooper special Monty Python photoshop
poster where I'm King Arthur and you are one of
the nights. It's Stricklin is in there too, Yeah, isn't
he like the page with the coconuts? Yeah? And there
he else is over there. Now I'm looking at a
picture of me face punching George Lucas. You haven't been
(42:49):
in this room in a while, have you? No? No,
But I remember it pretty well. It's burned in your
brain after twelve years. Uh So where was I You
were talking about the river sticks and or Archer Honor,
and which is might as well be the River sticks? Right, right?
But it is. It's like straight up taken from the Greeks,
and yet this devout Christian Dante is is writing about
(43:12):
it like this the Christian Hell, And it really kind
of goes to to show you just how much literary
license he took with this well and how much um
he borrowed from the Greeks, because like you, you would
think this is probably the Christian stance on on hell,
and it's not um. Like, for instance, Dante sees uh
thinks that it's a virtue if you're have moderation in
(43:36):
your life, like you don't wanna be too spindy and greedy,
also don't want to be too miserly, But that's not
a Christian thing at all, Like that's not in the
Tin Commandments. It's not one of the seven Deadly sins
or anything like that. No, there's gluttony, but miserly nous
is not in there, right, Yeah, So he's definitely just
saying this is this is what I Dante think. But
(43:57):
I guess it just hit a nerve because I mean, like,
like we were saying at the outset like this is
this is just this is basically what people think of
when they think of hell. These days if not the
fire and the red pitchfork and all that. All right,
So first circle limbo, not purgatory like we mentioned. Uh,
this is where you can like it's it's not terrible,
(44:19):
but it is hell and it's sort of unfair like
you said, Uh, you know, if you're not like, you
could just be born before Christ and you can be
in limbo, right like Aristotle's there. Aristotle was great and
virtuous and one of the greatest thinkers the world's ever produced.
Yet he's stuck in limbo because he existed before Christ
so couldn't possibly be saved. So what's next? Lust is next?
(44:43):
And this is pretty interesting too in that, um, you know,
some other people who had seen visions of hell, like
the the you know, medieval nights we talked about earlier,
they're talking about like you know, oh yeah, they they
nail your sack to a board with rusty nails, are
just really juvenile stuff. Dante goes a lot more poetic,
(45:04):
and that his idea of lust is is their punishment
for lust is you know, lovers are blown about by
the wind so that they can never quite get together
and there's always you know, kept just just out of
each other's reach, which is you know, it's it's a
lot more poetic than than the other one. Did you say,
nail your sack to a board, Yeah, like your backpack? Yes, okay, okay,
(45:29):
all right. The third circle is gluttony. Uh. Here you're
stuck in the mud and it's you're being pummeled by
hail and freezing rain. And um, this is where he
got a little bit of his bone to pick out
on Florence and what a terrible place that was. Um.
The fourth circle is where we get into the greed
(45:51):
and the miserly. Um. Basically, um, it's the circle of moderation, like,
don't go too far in either direction. Yeah, And he
really kind of plays into that symmetry as well, where
on the one side are the people who are super
gluttonous and like they spend just tons of money, and
then on the other side there are the people who
are super stingy and hoard their money. They're really two
(46:12):
sides of the same coin. I think Dante is correct
in that sense, and so they're both in that same
circle of hell, but on opposite sides of the circle.
The number five is that, Yeah, that's that's where those
of us who are um who get road rage will
(46:33):
be potentually that's where I'm gonna be Unford, all right,
and you're in the river sticks in that case. Yeah,
I just losh it around, being like I'm so married
about everything. Uh, circle number six everyone. It feels like
a Dave Letterman Top ten does all of a sudden.
These are heretics, These are pagans, these are atheists. These
are people who, while they were on Earth, were like, Hey,
(46:54):
I'm just gonna have a good time while i'm here.
I'm not worried about salvation. Yeah, and Epicurious in particular,
Ler's there and I was like, why Epicurious? And apparently
he very much and his followers did not believe in
any kind of afterlife, which is why they're like, make
the most of your time here on earth. I guess
that's where I am. Yeah. Um. It's basically another way
(47:16):
to interpret that is that these were people who's so
discord by injecting alternative ideas into the believers minds. All right,
well maybe I'm not there then, um no. Like also,
if you if you don't believe in an afterlife and
you're enjoying your time here on earth, you go there
either way you're scrowgy. Either way, well, at least we'll
(47:36):
be there together. Um. We also, I don't think we
mentioned that Virgil, the poet virgil Um is the one
who's guiding Dante around through these these things, and I
guess it's kind of acting is like his um uh
oh what is the name of from New York Dolls
and scrooged buster point X. He's acting as Dante's buster
(47:59):
point decks um, and so virtual's escorting him around. They
get to the seventh circle of hell Um, which contains
the city of dis which dis or is this in
the sixth I think it's in the sixth Yeah comes
(48:20):
after Yeah, So the and so a lot of a
lot of people, um kind of chop up these circles
of hell into the first through third, the second through
the sixth, and the seventh through the ninth. And apparently
Dante considered basically the first through the six is all
kind of generally in the same category, which was they
were sins of incontinence where people just couldn't resist the
(48:45):
earthly temptations. They had a weakness of will. They're you know,
they're being tormented because they made these choices. But Also
this is really it's it's forgivable stuff. Seventh through nine
is where who he considers the the gen new in centers,
the evil people reside. Yeah, this is where arsonists and murderers.
(49:06):
Um that he actually framed, you know, suicide as one
of these Uh in that seventh circle, Um, the eighth circle,
and you know this is it gets a little confusing
because in their smaller pockets within these circles. Uh. And again,
if you're a scholar of Dante, just I'm so so sorry,
so sorry. Yeah, hopefully they turned this. But the eighth
(49:30):
circle is for ten kinds of fraud. And then the
ninth circle is finally where Satan is and this is
for for Satan and as the lead trader basically um,
not trader but trade or which is you know, this
is a big one for me. I mean as a
(49:50):
Pisces Uh Sabbath fan of Black Sabbath like loyalty and
um is very important. Broken trust is to me like
of the worst things someone can do. And so I
didn't realize that was picy in in nature. Yeah, pretty
pice in very loyal very friendships and relationships are sort
(50:11):
of the utmost importance to be betrayed is like just
kind of the worst thing you can do. So this
is this would be your your you'd really enjoy this. Yeah,
I mean, I guess that's my eighth circle. Um. But
it's interesting in that Satan, the ultimate trader to God,
is stuck there but could get out. Um. In theory,
(50:32):
if Satan just realized that, like, hey, I'm beneath God
and I can recognize God as being above me and
I am not God's equal. Um. And it's a frozen
it gets a little confusing, but it's a frozen lake.
It's a little antithetical to what we think about is
Satan is being fiery, because what happens is the lake
(50:53):
with thaw and free Satan. If he wasn't flapping his
big bat wings to try and fly up to God
to proof he's as equal, but instead of Satan's wings,
I guess throwing forth like fire what you would think
and actually I guess is icy and it just keeps
that like frozen. Right. But if he would just yeah,
if he'd just give up, then he'd stopped beating his
(51:14):
wings and then it wouldn't all right, yeah, and then
he would be free. But then he just wouldn't be
Satan anymore. You know what I mean, to be a
broken version of Satan, and who wants that? Right then
we wouldn't have Tommy Davis Junior TV pilot. Yeah, right, exactly. So,
I mean, it's not like our idea of Hell just
ended at Dante. But I was like, yep, that's it.
(51:35):
Don't need to add to it, Like plenty of people
have over time. One of the coolest I've seen I
cannot remember what it was, but I suspect that was
an aon flux Um cartoon on Remember Liquids on MTV.
I think somehow aon flux ended up in Hell and
(51:56):
like this, the the weird conception of it was just
so unsettling. Everything was just so off. It was really
well done, and I'll have to go, like see if
I can find it. All I could find was that
aon Flex the movie sucked. That's all you can find
when you search a on Flex in Hell right now.
But um, I really want to find that again. If
(52:16):
I do, I'll have to tweet it out. Yeah. I mean,
you could do a whole second podcast episode on popular
versions of Hell and pop culture and movies and TV
and literature. Paintings. Serronamous Bosh is a great example. Um.
I love those paintings. This was a couple of centuries
after Inferno. But these are the ones that look like
sort of in default album covers. Um. They're great, very
(52:39):
cool stuff. Uh. And you know, like I said, there's
scores of versions of Hell, from Clive Barker to Marvel
Comics Too, to Sammy Davis Jr. And The Good Place.
They're all over the place. So it's definitely something that's like,
I don't know, it's just weirdly captured pop cultures imagination,
(53:01):
just as much as it did thousands of years ago
with religion. You know, one of the greatest, one of
the other great um conceptions of the afterlife, not necessarily hell,
but hell ish um is found in this. I think
I've mentioned it before a Joyce Carol Oates short story
called night Side, where there's this um seance and like
the spirits that are contacted are like all freaked out
(53:23):
because there's no it's all just chaos. Nobody. I think
they keep saying, like no one's in charge and like
everything is just out of order. Um. And it's a
really like unsettling read like Joyce Killer Oates is so
good with horror, but that that particular one is super disturbing.
I highly recommend everybody reading it. Yeah, and if you
want to see a fun take on the afterlife, watch
(53:45):
the great Albert Brooks movie Defending Your Life. Oh my god,
that is such a great movie. One of the all
time great sleeper films ever, wonderful, so good. Yeah, that's
a good that's a treat right there. Good for you,
the great Albert Brooks. Yeah. Well, since Chuck can't stop
talking about Albert Brooks, I think that means it's time
for listener. Ma'm fun. Fact a lot of people know this.
(54:09):
Albert Brooks born Albert Einstein. No, yes, no, yes, brother
of super Dave Osborne. I guess I had known that,
but only when Super Dave died recently, right, uh, yeah,
he did die. Their birth name was Einstein. I think
I think Super Dave Osborne was super Dave Einstein. No,
(54:30):
I think it was Bob Einstein. And I don't know.
I think so, I don't know, but that he's like
from the Larry Bud Melman era of Letterman and yeah,
good stuff. Oh yeah, So if you want to know
more about Hell, just start sending your a off and
you'll find out about it soon enough. And like I said,
(54:52):
since Chuck keeps talking about Albert Brooks, it is time
for a listener. Man. Yeah, I'm gonna call this one
of our great senior listeners. Uh. And this this lady
is from Australia. Hello, guys. I'm an eighty year old
woman in aged care. My life was very mundane and
quite boring. I finally bought a mobility scooter now uh
and I could get out and ride the wonderful pathways
(55:14):
and visit the shops. My son Robert, thought I needed
more interest, so he hooked my phone up to Josh
and Chuck podcasts. Wow, all capitals. How I love riding
around on my scooter and listening to your wonderful humor
and mostly interesting things in quotes. I love it. So
perhaps she even has the book. I have learned so
(55:35):
much about everything, love Elvis, visiting Nixon for a NARC, Badge,
Building Boulder, Damn, Francis Perkins, etcetera. Just everything. Guys, keep
up the good work. Cheers from Glenda on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Very nice. That was Glenda write. Yeah, I just love
(55:56):
hearing from Glinda. She's great. Thank you, Glenda. Yeah, I
think Glenda should write in every once in a while.
I was just say hi and talk about her favorite
recent episode. I would love What do you think, Glenda,
if you're listening, please do that and what was her son?
Richard Robert Robert Robert. Thank you for turning your mom
onto stuff you should Know. Um, well, if you wanna
(56:20):
talk about how you turn somebody onto stuff you should know,
we would love to hear about that. That's great. You
can write us in an email, wrap it up, spank
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Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
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