President Obama has not attended an atheist meetup, drinking skepchickally, skeptics in the pub, or other nonbeliever event since he took office, despite his inaugural address pledge to acknowledge nonbelievers, and his continued insistence on “reaching across the aisle” to acknowledge and respect those with different beliefs.
“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace,” Obama stated in his inaugural address.
Within his first few months in office, Obama has already reached that hand of respect out to all corners of the earth, from offers to speak with leaders of Muslim nations to actually visiting heavily Islamic countries , bringing offerings of peace, and an explicit assurance that the United States is not at war with Islam.
Domestically, Obama has reinvigorated the controversial faith-based initiative, favoring religious discrimination in organizations that receive federal funding, and stocking his advisory panel with a heavy majority of theists.
Despite this overt and frequent outreach to religious organizations domestic and foreign, Obama has made no effort to connect with the non-believers he pledged to treat with the same respect and attention as believers. His reference to non-believers seems, in hindsight, to have been nothing other than a hat-tip to the often left-leaning fifteen percent of the nation, most of whom helped him get elected.
Obama has also pledged to seek a new church for himself and his family, subjecting his minor daughters to indoctrination in dogma almost universally rejected by the scientists of the world, with details disagreed upon by nearly every other religious denomination or sect. He has yet to choose one, indicating that he must take into consideration the interference he would cause with church attendance of fellow church members. Why has he not taken into consideration the idea that by choosing to be an active practitioner of an ancient superstitious ritual, he interferes with the ability of both non-believers and those who believe in different superstitions to be treated with respect and equality in a nation founded with an explicit separation of church and state?
President Obama, pick yourself a church along with your wife. Let your children play in the White House playground, or have them tutored by someone who respects reality and can encourage them to be skeptical instead of dogmatic. And then make a surprise visit to a Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, or Sam Harris lecture/debate, or an atheist meetup. You might get some shit from the fundamentalists, but didn’t you say something about reaching out to everyone, despite their beliefs? You reached out to one of the most hated homophobes, Rick Warren, for your invocation. What’s stopping you from reaching out to people who don’t happen to share your monotheistic point of view?
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This article is a rebuttal to the Fox News Blog comment “BILL SAMMON: When Will Obama Go to Church?” by Bill Sammon, Managing Editor, Washington Bureau, FOX News Channel, which, out of all the things that someone could find fault about Obama over, chooses to attack Obama’s lack of church attendance since his swearing-in.
We so desperately wait for the weekend. We trudge through the week as if it’s the most painful experience ever, and then we thank God it’s Friday, spending a few days doing whatever we can to squeeze in some down time, just so we can drag ourselves back to work again on Monday to replay the whole routine.
Of course, not everyone suffers that way. Some really enjoy their work weeks, and some have entirely different work schedules. However, it’s a widely known phenomenon, at least in the U.S., to dread the work week while longing for the weekend. Is there, then, a parallel between the work week and Christian life?
Christians trudge through life while constantly enduring the idea that they’re guilty of original sin that they, themselves didn’t commit, but for which they somehow feel responsible. Then they lay upon themselves (and others) a heap of additional sins for a multitude of acts generally related to pleasure, all with the idea that not to do so would threaten their chances of success in the afterlife.
Just like work weekers, they look forward to the end of suffering — the eternal weekend. Of course, the nice thing about a real weekend is that we actually get to experience it. We know first-hand that it exists, and how to get to it. And we know that it has an end (and we start over again — perhaps real life is more Hindu or Buddhist in structure). Christians, on the other hand, have not experienced eternal life. They don’t know first-hand that it exists (no, even if God whispers assurances in your ear, that’s still not first-hand). Perhaps these longings are somehow more than parallel. What if they’re related? Maybe after generations of toiling away at work that ultimately brings more work, more pain, and more suffering, the longing for relief has created in many minds a supernatural explanation for the ultimate question of “Why?” Why do we have to suffer — well, to get to the next weekend! To get to the weekend to trump all weekends, the afterweekend!
From the perspective of an everyday worker — coal miner, cashier, police officer, garbage collector — it’s not hard to imagine how and why that connection occurred between the toil of daily life that, from generation to generation, seems merely to repeat and end with death, and the hope of something more than that as, perhaps, a way to excuse or reward for the suffering.
So, how do non-believers deal with the prospect that things are exactly as they appear, that we work our butts off in life just to survive and possibly create a glimmer of happiness, only to end it all as worm food, with nothing else? I think the answer depends upon whether the non-believer was ever a believer. The pure atheists (I’ll just use that term for people who are born and raised without belief in a god, and have never experienced that belief) I’ve spoken with seem to love life. They endure the sufferings, but try to make life better for themselves and those around them. I don’t believe that they even consider an afterlife as a possibility — they deal with what they know or what they can know, and they don’t seem to expend any energy trying to manipulate what they cannot know.
Former believers, on the other hand, vary, usually depending on how deeply involved they were with their religions and how long it’s been since they’ve deconverted. Many I’ve spoken with have expressed a profound sadness at the loss of potential afterlife, as if even though they recognize and admit that there probably is no afterlife, it’s something that, when absent, creates a sort of empty spot in their psyche — suddenly, it seems, the reason and relief of suffering has disappeared, and there’s nothing to replace it. I, myself, felt that way for a while after my deconversion. I felt almost as if by not being willing to believe, I was sacrificing my chance at some eternal afterlife. An afterlife that I seriously doubted existed, but that I sincerely hoped did. I have relatives who would probably, if pressed, call themselves deist or agnostic, who, I think, still feel longing for an afterlife, for a heaven of some sort. I cannot condemn them for such longing.
It took me a long time to get over those feelings, and I’m honestly not sure I am completely devoid of them now. I don’t believe in an afterlife, and I certainly don’t believe some interventionist deity is judging my life in order to place me according to divine will into either some fiery pit or cottony heaven. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t want that at all, even if by thinking it, I could make it happen. I’d much rather be the final arbiter of my own life — did I make this life worth it, or did I toil in a monotone assembly-line of day-to-day, week-to-weekend, decade-to-decade, life-to-death?
In this first video of the BBC program “What the World Thinks of God,”1Jeremy Vine,2 the host, mentions repeatedly that Britain is “lagging behind in question after question” in terms of belief in God, belief in a creator being, and other pro-God belief questions.3 Finally, after reviewing the answers of the poll asking whether the respondent would “die for [his or her] God,” and finding that the UK finished second lowest in the poll, with 19% (“once again down at the bottom”) of the 10,000 people polled stating that they would die for their God, Vine questions the Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones: “The UK seems to be struggling. What’s going on?”
I’ll tell you what’s going on, Mr. Vine. The UK is certainly struggling, but not struggling to overcome the taint of atheism, as you so blatantly suggest. The poll results are a sign of the reasonable people of the UK struggling to overcome thousands of years of oppression and dogma forced upon the people by various churches and religions throughout history. The U.S. could learn a thing or two from the British in that regard (although its government is less noteworthy).
And Mr. Vine, perhaps, can learn a thing or two from Jonathan Miller, a British opera director and non-believer, when the host asks Mr. Miller, in the second video, “The very very big feature of our poll is that there is a huge majority for God. How do you feel about that as an atheist?”4
Although Miller rejects the badge and label of atheist, it seems for reasons of simplification, he ultimately accepts it (perhaps as a cultural necessity to distinguish him from believers), and he indicates that no [religion] had gotten to him before his “cognitive immune system got working.”
Vine then insisted on referring back to the polls, that they suggest that most people believe in God, and thus obviously a result of a massive collapse in the immune system Miller referred to.
Miller puts Vine in his place, “First of all, I don’t trust these sorts of media-driven polls.5 They always ask extremely simple-minded questions and get simple-minded answers. It’s never a way to really find out what the distribution of thoughts and opinions really is.” I agree with Miller. Our polling is killing our intellect. I don’t care how careful and unbiased a pollster is allegedly being, asking 10,000 people out of a country of over 50 million is not and cannot be a true representation of that country. Perhaps polling worked better when people were not so mobile or Internet-ready, or when, in a city of 10,000, you poll 100 (that’d be 1%), but polling 10,0006 out of a population of 50,000,000 is polling .02%. That’s not 2%! It’s two hundredths of a percent! It’s the equivalent of walking into a town of 5,000 inhabitants, asking the first person you see, “Do you believe in God?” and then asserting that all 4,999 residents of the town believe the same thing as that one person polled.
Regardless of the fact that Vine is one of the few openly Christian British television commentators, setting up a program to espouse his personal views while pretending to appeal to a neutral analysis of God-belief, using some of the most biased polls I’ve ever seen, is heinous and unprofessional, and BBC should be heavily criticized (or criticised, as the case may be) for airing such crap.7
Of course, not to be unfair, the U.S. has Fox News.8
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Just for the fun of it, here’s what BBC posted of the poll:
Britain is one of the most secular nations in the world, a new poll in 10 countries finds
Levels of religious belief and activity in the UK are far lower than in almost all other countries surveyed across the globe in a special poll undertaken for the BBC.
The ICM poll of 10,000 people in the USA, UK, Israel, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico and Lebanon was carried out for What the World Thinks of God – BBC TWO, Thursday 26 February, 9.00pm.
It reveals that only 46% of respondents in the UK said they have always believed in God – 27% less than the average.
Only Russia (42%) and South Korea (28%) were lower.
Furthermore just 52% of UK respondents believed God (or a Higher Power) created the universe, compared to 85% in the USA, 83% in Mexico, 99% in Indonesia and 96% in Lebanon.
The highest levels of belief are found in the poorer nations of Nigeria (98%), India (92%) and Indonesia (97%).
However, the USA – the richest nation polled – has a very high level of belief.
Only 13% of those polled in America said they found it hard to believe in God (a Higher power) when there was so much suffering in the world.
Yet this compares to more than half (52%) of those polled in the UK – the highest of all the countries – and more than twice the average. The figures for Lebanon were 2% and Nigeria 12%.
The survey found that only 19% of those in the UK said they would die for their God/beliefs.
This compares to 37% in Israel, 90% of those polled in Indonesia and Nigeria, and 71% in the USA and Lebanon.
A staggering 78% of those polled in the USA claimed to have studied religious texts, by far the largest figure, followed by 51% in Nigeria and 42% in the UK. This compares to an average of 33%.
The poll also looked at the place of religion in the world.
Almost a third (29%) of people in the UK believe that the world would be a more peaceful place without beliefs in God but very few people in other countries agreed.
Just 6% of those polled in America agreed with this view, 11% in Israel and 9% in India. The average across all ten countries was 10%.
Only 15% of those polled in America blamed people of other religions for much of the trouble in the world compared with more than a third (37%) in the UK and 33% in Israel.
This figure fell to 8% of those polled in Indonesia, 24% in Lebanon and 17% in India.
The poll also looked at levels of attendance at organised religious services in the UK compared to the rest of the world.
Across the ten countries, an average of 46% regularly attend a religious service but the figure was 21% in the UK, the second lowest behind Russia (7%).
The highest figure was 91% for Nigerians, with 54% in the USA.
Furthermore just 29% of UK respondents said they had been encouraged to believe in God by someone outside their family, compared with 57% in the USA.
With regards to prayer, a total of 95% of Nigerians polled said they prayed regularly as did 67% of those polled in the USA with further numbers praying occasionally at times of crisis.
28% in the UK said they prayed regularly and 41% in Israel.
However 25% of people in the UK and 29% of people in Israel said they never prayed.
The poll did reveal however that nearly 30% of all atheists polled admitted they prayed sometimes.
Asked whether a belief in a God/higher power makes for a better human being, well over 80% of people in most countries agreed, but by far the lowest figure was in the UK with just 56%.
Furthermore, just 42% of UK respondents believed God (or a higher power) judges their actions and the way they lived their lives compared to 76% in America, 72% in Israel, 81% in Nigeria and an average of 70%.
Exploring the issue of tolerance of different religions the poll found that more than 90% of all respondents in Nigeria, Indonesia and Lebanon believed their God was the only true God.
This compares to 70% in Israel and just 31% in the UK.
The majority of those polled when asked if they believed death was the end disagreed.
This was the case for more than half of the UK respondents (51%), 79% of those polled in Nigeria, 75% in Lebanon and 74% in the USA.
Looking at how attitudes change across different religions, the poll found that while 85% of Hindus and 83% of Muslims said they prayed regularly, only 65% of Christians did and barely a third (38%) of Jews.
When asked if their God was the only true God, 95% of Muslims said yes, compared with 68% of Christians and 66% of Jews.
But when asked if other religions were to blame for the troubles in the world, 34% of Jews agreed, while only 24% of Christians, 18% of Hindus and 14% of Muslims agreed.9
According to Wikipedia, “Vine is one of the most prominent openly Christian broadcasters in the UK and has also presented numerous religious-themed programmes for the BBC.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Vine [<]
The poll questions start at about 6:45 in the first video. [<]
Note the smirk on Vine’s face as they cut to him after that reply. Brilliant! [<]
Interestingly enough, the poll doesn’t state specifically whether they polled 10,000 people in total, or 10,000 people per nation. If the former, that would be even more embarrassing of a statistic. If the latter, still an unrealistic and biased, useless bit of trivia, not fact. [<]
Either now, or in 2004, when this program was first presented. [<]
One of Barack Obama’s Factcheck web pages is devoted to disclaiming any and all rumors that Obama is Muslim.1 Obviously it’s critical for a presidential candidate to dispel the kinds of accusations that would negatively impact a campaign. Obama, however, doesn’t stop with quashing rumor — he devotes a tremendous amount of time and effort swinging the religious pendulum hard in the opposite direction. That direction is Christianity, presumably because while being accused of worshipping a single creator god (from one particular origin) is heinous, bragging about worshipping a single creator god (from a different, but related origin) is not only perfectly acceptable, but also a key component required to obtain the U.S. presidency.
Examine the fear-tinged rejections of Islam, on Obama’s web page, compared to the praises of Obama’s fealty to Jesus Christ: (all quotes from the footnoted website; emphasis mine)
Obama Has Never Been A Muslim, And Is a Committed Christian
OBAMA IS NOT AND HAS NEVER BEEN A MUSLIM
Obama Spokesman Robert Gibbs Issued A Statement Explaining That “Senator Obama Has Never Been A Muslim, Was Not Raised As A Muslim, And Is A Committed Christian.” “Obama’s campaign aides have emphasized his strong Christian beliefs and downplayed any Islamic connection. The Illinois senator was raised ‘in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother,’ his chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement in January after false reports began circulating that Obama had attended a radical madrasa, or Koranic school, as a child. ‘To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago,’ Gibbs’ Jan. 24 statement said.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/16/07]
Obama “Beckoning” Felt At Trinity United Church Of Christ, “Submitted Myself To His Will, And Dedicated Myself To Discovering His Truth And Carrying Out His Works.” Obama said, “So one Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called “The Audacity of Hope.” And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life. It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.” [Speech, 6/23/07]
Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim. Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ.
HE NEVER ATTENDED A RADICAL MUSLIM SCHOOL
CNN Reporter: I’ve Been to Madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Obama’s Indonesian Elementary School Is Nothing Like That. On January 22, CNN Reporter John Vause reported, “I came here to Barack Obama’s elementary school in Jakarta, looking for what some are calling an Islamic Madrassa, like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.. I’ve been to those Madrassas in Pakistan and Wolf, this school is nothing like that.” [CNN, Situation Room, 1/22/07]
What if he had attended a radical Catholic school? I know a number of Catholics who would argue that their Catholic school and upbringing was radical. Would that exempt him from the presidential race, or would it enhance his chances at winning?
OBAMA IS A PRACTICING CHRISTIAN
Obama Has Been A Member Of Trinity United Church Of Christ For Twenty Years. Monroe Anderson stands up for Reverend Wright’s ministry, “For the past two decades, Barack Obama has been a faithful member of the congregation at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.” [Chicago Sun-Times, Monroe Anderson, 3/25/07]
Obama Was Baptized And Attends Church Once a Week When He is Able. In the Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote, “I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized.” In 2004, he “attend[ed] the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the Brainerd neighborhood every week — or at least as many weeks as he is able. His pastor, Wright, has become a close confidant.” When asked about his decision to be baptized, Obama said “Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me,” he said of his walk down the aisle of the Trinity United Church of Christ. “I submitted myself to his will and dedicated myself to discovering his truth.” [Audacity of Hope, p.208, Chicago Sun Times, 4/5/04; AP 6/28/06]
Obama Reads The Bible, Finds Time to Pray On Campaign Trail. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “Obama says he reads the Bible, though not as regularly as he’d like, now that he’s on the campaign trail. But he does find time to pray. ‘It’s not formal, me getting on my knees,’ he says. ‘I think I have an ongoing conversation with God… I’m constantly asking myself questions about what I’m doing, why I am doing it.’” [Chicago Sun Times, 4/5/04]
Obama Held His Personal Bible When He Was Sworn-In As A U.S. Senator. “…Even before the makeshift office was up and running in the basement of a Senate building, even before he raised his hand Tuesday to take the oath of office as the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama was already a political rock star and a celebrated new face in Congress. He arrived Tuesday, his first official day in the Capitol…. In the circles he runs in now, celebrity status is checked at the cloakroom door…When it was finally time to take the oath, he held his personal Bible, as family from as far away as Kenya watched from the visitors’ gallery above. His daughters, Malia, 6, and Sasha, 3, in velvet dresses and patent leather shoes, bounced in their chairs when he looked up and waved.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/5/05]
Questions, Mr. Obama: What does the Bible actually say? Why do you read it? Why did you hold a bible when you were sworn in? (I thought our government was secular). Why are you using that fact as a positive indicator of your ability to run this country? What does the Bible say about slavery, Mr. Obama? Are you going to have a copy of the “Ten Commandments” placed on display in the White House? Could you make an executive decision that you think goes against “God’s will”? What is God’s will with regard to non-believers? That’s in the Bible, right? Why read the Bible, profess worship for the alleged dictator of that work, and then not actually follow the clear commands within it? Do you, Mr. Obama, know what the punishments for violating the Ten Commandments are? Would you enforce them while holding the presidential office? If not, why devote so much time and energy to show the citizenry of the U.S. that you are a faithful Christian, follower of Jesus, and worshiper of the Christian God, to whom you have “submitted” your “will”?
Ah, here are some answers:
TRINITY TENETS ARE “TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM SCRIPTURE” AND EMPHASIZE “COMMITMENT” TO GOD, COMMUNITY, FAMILY, WORK, SELF-DISCIPLINE AND SELF-RESPECT
Obama Says Black Values System Must Be Understood as a Whole. “Obama said it was important to understand the document as a whole rather than highlight individual tenets. ‘Commitment to God, black community, commitment to the black family, the black work ethic, self-discipline and self-respect,’ he said. ‘Those are values that the conservative movement in particular has suggested are necessary for black advancement…So I would be puzzled that they would object or quibble with the bulk of a document that basically espouses profoundly conservative values of self-reliance and self-help.’” [Chicago Tribune, 2/6/07]
Obama Says Argument Against “Middleclassness” Taken Directly From Scripture. “In his published memoirs, Obama said even he was stopped by Trinity’s tenet to disavow “middleclassness” when he first read it two decades ago in a church pamphlet. The brochure implored upwardly mobile church members not to distance themselves from less fortunate Trinity worshipers. ‘As I read it, at least, it was a very simple argument taken directly from Scripture: ‘To whom much is given much is required,” Obama said. [Chicago Tribune, 2/6/07]
Wait, those aren’t answers. Has anyone asked Senator Obama the kinds of questions I posed? Or even come close? Why does the nation think it’s unimportant to ask such questions? Is it fear of reprisal? Is it that everyone who could possibly ask such questions is prevented from doing so? Where are questions like that in formal debates? Doesn’t the Muslim American community have an interest in asking these questions? What about the Buddhists, the Hindus, the deists, the other Christian sects, the undecided? There’s quite a large chunk of this nation that does not represent a Christian population. Why do we consistently throw softball questions at candidates? Why do we, by default, accept the status quo that “Christian” means “good”? Obama says he’s for change. I believe it, but regarding religion and the way Christianity is put on a pedestal in the United States, I believe he’s for perpetuation.
Human beings seem to have a natural desire to want to be rewarded for their good deeds and punished for the bad (well, to see others punished, anyways). The comforting concept of an end to all suffering after we die, of an infinite paradise, is simply not enough. People want justice. They want to know that all the rapists and murderers, the drunken fathers, the bullies that picked on them in school, the neighbors who have wild parties while they abstain, and of course the heathen unbelievers (especially them) are all going to have to someday pay. Let’s take a look at some of the different ways in which people believe their fellow humans will eventually suffer.
Judaism
Although Judaism does not have a specific doctrine regarding an afterlife, the Tanakh makes many references to Gehenna, or Sheol, which is believed to be a sort of purgatory for the dead, and there is a mystical tradition of describing it. The word Gehenna was derived from the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem, which was where the ancient Israelites sacrificed children, and later it was used as a dump for burning garbage and had a terrible stench. This fiery place became a metaphor for the entrance to Hell.1 Gehenna is not considered to be a physical place, but rather a feeling of intense shame and awareness of one’s sins. Some believe that the soul is purified in Gehenna, which allows the soul to ascend to Olam Ha-Ba, which can be compared to the Christian Heaven.2 Very few Jews believe that existence in Gehenna can be permanent, with most believing the longest stay possible is eleven months. The Kabbalah describes Gehenna as a “waiting room.”
Christianity
The Christian concept of Hell stems from the apocalyptic sections of the New Testament. Revelation 20: 11-15 describes a “great white throne” before which all the dead must stand to be judged on their actions in life. Those who do not make the cut are thrown into a lake of fire to burn eternally. Many portrayals of Hell depict demons who torture the damned. Matthew 13: 42 states there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Many Christians believe Hell is located in the Earth’s core, since Ephesians 4: 9 mentions the “lower parts of the earth.” Some actually believe that the screams of the tormented can be heard in erupting volcanoes.3 Satan is considered to be the ruler of Hell in most denominations, although some believe Saint Peter is Hell’s keeper. Few denominations can come to a consensus on which sins make a person worthy of Hell’s fiery torture, but it is almost universally believed that anyone who is not a Christian will meet that fate.
Islam
The Islamic concept of Hell is called Jahannam, and it is very similar to that of Christianity in that it is generally portrayed as hot and fiery. However, Hell’s fate is not considered to be infinite but rather a basis for spiritual rectification, and the devil (shaitan) is not its ruler, just a tortured soul like the rest.4 Also, there are considered to be many levels of Hell depending on the degree of a person’s transgressions in life. The lowest pit of Hell is called Hawiyah, and it is reserved for those who exhibit hypocrisy, which is considered to be the worst of all sins. According to the Qur’an, anyone who claims to believe in Allah but denounces Him in his or her heart will end up in Hawiyah. There is also one pit of Hell, called Zamhareer, which is not fiery but freezing. The tree of Zaqqum is believed to bear thorny, bitter fruit, which the souls of the damned are compelled to eat, furthering their torment.5
Buddhism
Several different versions of Hell, or Naraka, are believed to exist in the major Buddhist schools of thought. A person with enough negative karma can be reborn into one of these Narakas. Existence in these realms is temporary, although beings are thought to be held there for vast stretches of time. One of the most common schemes for describing the various torments is that of the Eight Cold Narakas and the Eight Hot Narakas. The cold Narakas depict such tortures as being naked and alone in perpetual blizzards, shivering uncontrollably, forming blisters which burst open, and having the skin or even the entire body crack open, leaving one raw and bloody. The hot Narakas include suffering such as being attacked with iron claws or fiery weapons, being sliced into pieces, being crushed into a bloody jelly by molten metal, being impaled on a fiery spear, and being roasted in a blazing oven. Buddhists also believe that Hell can be a state of consciousness in which one suffers because of one’s actions.6
Hinduism
Hindu literature also speaks of Naraka (Neraka in Hinduism), although not in quite as gory detail as the Buddhist literature. It is believed that at the time of death, souls who have sinned may be captured by the servants of Yama, the Lord of Justice. Yama will deem the appropriate punishment for the sinner which, as in Buddhism, is temporary. When the punishment is complete, Hindus believe the soul will be reborn on Earth in a human or animal body. Some Hindus do not accept the existence of the Nerakas, or consider their descriptions to be metaphorical.7
