As a system of control, people over the years have called out various religious standards that have successfully over time, clogged the expression of freedom in so many ways. With the line so perfectly defined between religion and the state, and freedom completely independent from the interference of the former, one may be tempted to ask if the world is slowly slipping into the threshold of hell. Let us quickly have that conversation, shall we?
Every major religious movement talks about two realms that serve the basic purpose of pleasure and pain; reward and punishment; life and death. For Christians (which is far more popular), it is either heaven or hell. While heaven has come to be associated with a good life, pleasure and unending joy, hell has quickly been described as a place of eternal suffering. Hell, in most cases, could mean everything bad, immoral, chaotic, unpleasant and below social standards. That would be our focus as regards the subject of “hell” in this article.
In a world that has grown surprisingly ‘tired’ of relying on religion for one reason or the other, it is highly unexpected that it would choose the throes of hell as a place of refuge. There have been increasing cases of war, crime, destruction of lives and property, and the high rate of moral decadence just keekeepcreasing. One Twitter user joked that “this generation is more comfortable about going hell”, and that completely stuck. While we may have paid little or no attention to religion for one reason or the other, most people are clearly unapologetic about opening the gates of hell.
We are clearly not talking about religion or conversion to the faith; we clearly pointing out that there is a lesson or two to learn from all these things that have been going on. No one is saying you should accept Jesus as your personal Lord and saviour; that is a decision that is left to you. But what we can have a say in is how to salvage society from slipping deeper into the hands of hell.
To conquer, we have to look at the bright side of religion. Again, we are not saying you should profess faith solely as a way of getting out of this crisis, as that is definitely a personal decision for you. We are saying that we can look at certain qualities or values through religion which we can use to save the world from the shackles of hell.
To start with, virtually all religions preach peace. Irrespective of the fact that the major religions had to solidify their positions through wars, they still preach peace as a fundamental value. Peace is a concept that can clamp down on most of the problems in the world. Peace can end violent conflicts, insecurities and social vices like crimes. The presence of peace indicates the presence of humanity. Its presence is a considerable amount of water that can quench the fires the hell.
Another important value preached by religion is Love. The presence of love gets rid of enemies, and with a global friendship being in place, there would be no need to consider one as an enemy or bear any form of hatred against anyone. Love goes beyond relationships, family and friends, to affect people from all works of life. On a personal level, if you love someone, you cannot harm them, or conceive for harm to be done to them. This can go beyond a personal level to a global stage.
In conclusion, we have lived through or heard of a time when religion completely dominated social life, playing active and decisive roles in shaping society and clogging human rights and freedom in the process. While those days may have gone and the world still loathes it for that, it has become imperative that we must look on to religion, not as a system of control again, but as a way of ensuring that the biblical gates of hell do not open and swallow the world whole.
Read Also – There Is No White God In Heaven & Black Devil In Hell
