Hellfire And Damnation Essay Research Paper Looking

Hellfire And Damnation Essay, Research Paper

Looking back on my childhood, I have many memories shrouded in fear and self-loathing. I was raised in the Baptist church. My mother and grandmother made sure that I attended church every Sunday morning. My grandmother was from the mid-west. She carried her strict Bible belt background with her as she traveled west with my grandfather. The many lessons I learned from my grandmother and the minister at our church played a big part in how I began to see the world and my place in it.

It would seem, looking back now, that the whole basis for my teachings during those early years was fear. I had the most intense fear of going to Hell. The only thing one had to know about Hell was that it was the place where one’s worst nightmares became real. The really horrible part was that Hell was for eternity. This one life that I had to live could determine whether or not eternity would be heaven or hell. From my experience as a five-year-old, I knew that most things usually turned out wrong on the first try, so the thought of having to get it right in just one try damn near paralyzed me.

With Hell as the ultimate punishment, I began going about the business of learning how to avoid it. It seems that there was a list a mile long of things that one should or shouldn’t do that would put one in the good graces of the Lord. Do not hang out with the pagans down the street (there was a Mormon Church about two blocks down). Do not engage in pre-marital sex. Never masturbate. This is just to name a few; the list seems to go on and on.

As if the list of things to avoid was not long enough, the minister of our small congregation was always preaching about how unworthy of God’s love we were. It seemed his favorite topic. He could go on for hours about how we were all sinners. Such horrible sinners were we that there was nothing we could do about it. We were rotten to the core. We did not deserve God’s love or anyone’s love, yet God loved us anyway. That made God a really great guy.

My interpretation of this particular sermon was that I was a horrible person not worthy of love. I was a sinner and I was going to Hell. I would cry myself to sleep at night because I was so sure that I would be one of those lost souls for all of eternity. The minister talked of redemption. All I had to do to be saved and get into heaven was confess my sins and ask for forgiveness.

I was sure, however, that I had far too many sins to be forgiven; besides, I wasn’t really sorry for most of my “sins.” I could not feel bad about questioning my parents’ and the church’s authority. Most of the time it seemed that they contradicted themselves or just didn’t make any sense at all. I had a very hard time digesting the teachings of the church that included both a God who would demand killing and sacrifice and the same God who would love and protect his children. Due to the teachings I received and with so many people being in agreement, I just figured they must be right on some level, which made me the odd man out and the one destined to pay with my soul.

All I had to do was to take a look at the Ten Commandments to see that I was not doing so well in the eyes of the Lord. “You must not Murder,” I hadn’t done that. “You must not commit adultery.” I didn’t even know what that meant. “You must not steal,” I did this all the time. I would take change from my father’s change drawer. My mother was always telling me that I could not have candy from the store or small inexpensive toys because we had no money. I knew that she was lying. From the looks of my father’s change drawer, we were rich.

Which leads us to the next Commandment, “ You must not tell lies.” If my mother was telling me a lie about the state of our family’s finances wasn’t it all right for me to steal to make up for her lie. Funny enough, no one was willing to discuss this with me. “You must not burn with desire for another man’s wife, nor envy him for his home, land, servants, oxen, donkeys, nor anything else he owns.” What if his stuff is better. “You may worship no other God than me.” At an early age I knew no other God so, this was not a problem for me.

“You shall not make yourselves any idols: any images resembling animals, birds, or fish. You must never bow to an image or worship it in any way; for I, the Lord your God, am very possessive. I will not share your affection with any other god!” From a very early age I would play a game using my stuffed animals and high mounds of dirt to make sacred places, little sanctuaries, containing my stuffed animals. The stuffed animals were my special friends. I was never sure if this would send me to hell or not. I was afraid to ask because I enjoyed the game and was afraid someone would tell me I had to stop playing it.

“You shall not use the name of Jehovah your God irreverently, nor use it to swear to a falsehood. You will not escape punishment if you do.” I was not completely sure what this meant, but someone once told me it had something to do with the phrase, “God damn it.” I used this in private when I would get frustrated. I was modeling my father, who also liked this term. “Remember to observe the Sabbath as a holy day.” Sunday was one of my weekend days. How was I supposed to give it up to God and do nothing when I spent at least five days a week at school and Saturdays usually cleaning my room o