Why Do People Believe in Hell?

[Binkie The Clown]

35. If god is truly infinitely loving and merciful, then even Hitler went to heaven.

The problem is that humans just can't accept that as a possibility, so they must invent a place of ultimate revenge.

You would think that any god worth the name would want his "children" to learn by their mistakes. Would any parent who caught their child in a lie or found out that the child had stolen fifty cents from the mother's purse throw the child into the basement and lock them there for the rest of their life? Don't be ridiculous. We try to help our children learn from their mistakes so that they can become better people. Apparently this so-called god doesn't want people to become better. Eternal punishment for a finite crime is nothing more than the human need for vengeance, not the impulse to help. Hell leaves no possibility of learning from mistakes, and is, therefore, petty and vindictive, and is clealry a human invention.

Disclaimer: I don't believe in god or the devil or any kind of eternal reward or punishment. It's all fairy tales and mythology meant to comfort us when scary things go bump in the night.