Risking Hell
The one hell we know of that we can actually verify is hell on earth, the nightmare of being a conscious, self-aware individual belonging to a species that excels at traumatizing others. But there’s the other hell that many humans believe in: the afterlife hell where humans are damned to eternal suffering for sins they committed during a relatively short existence, including the sin of not believing in the same faith as one’s parents. If this hell that people talk about actually exists, then there could be billions and billions of humans suffering endlessly right now in hell, punished by a supposedly benevolent and loving god who created a setting dedicated to everlasting torture. If you are someone who believes in the existence of hell after death for anyone who has been born, why would you want to subject someone into a world where they could live a short life of suffering and then be doomed to infinite and far worse suffering? Is that a benevolent and loving gamble to push onto someone? Many people live with an aggressive fear of death and a torturous afterlife. Wouldn’t it be better to not exist, than to exist and always be afraid of one’s mortality? Wouldn’t it be better to not chance ending up doomed to eternal suffering? The absence of getting to experience heaven isn’t a bad thing, but the absence of having to experience any kind of hell is a good thing.