I unfortunately have put dicky dawkin's little book far down my list of summer reads, but shouldnt we first define hell and understand it as a concept before we use it as a negative feature of Christianity?
You can even look at it from two standpoints. In the context of spiritual and secular spheres.
Lets take the hypothetical notion that much if not all of what we know about hell is a falsehood, meant as a tool by the church to subjugate people. Hell is for those who, without any sign of repentance and penance, which is essentially from my understanding, correcting ones mistakes, go about their lives in sin, rejecting God. Now we have to ask ourselves the purpose of this fear. Primarily hell then is to deter those of sin, and im sure as a good irish lad you know plenty about various forms of sin. The ten commandments, the seven deadly sins, et cetera. I cant name any examples from the core list that i just described above that are negative to the order and stability of society, instead they seem to in fact promote peaceful coexistence. Now ideally then, the idea of hell from a secular standpoint is just another social mechanism used to create a happy and ordered society.
How is teaching right from wrong traumatizing? If you disobey society's conventions, i.e the golden rule, depending on the period at which you live, there is every legitimate reason in the world to expel you from society, perhaps through death. Why not, then, is it so terrible to reinforce this obedience, through(if one takes a secular stance) a noble lie to prevent anarchy and chaos?
Do i need to explain the spiritual idea of hell?
