One of our regular readers (we do very much appreciate all of them!) recently sent us a note that they’d been having discussions with their spouse about hell. Don’t misunderstand, theirs is a perfectly happy relationship. But the spouse’s family was concerned that, for various reasons, they might not all wind up, eventually, in that happiest place not on earth. So, we thought, what the hell, let’s devote today’s blog post to – well, Hell.
“Hell: A place where the police are German, the motorists French, and the cooks English.”
Bertrand Russell
Hell has been with us for as long as we’ve needed somewhere to send our enemies once they’re beyond our reach. Most cultures, in their more inspired moments, have sketched out some version of it - a place where the wicked finally get what’s coming to them, free of the bothersome ethical dilemmas of justice here on Earth. Hell has always been the perfect metaphor for life’s most unfortunate moments - like a dead-end job or an unplanned dinner with the in-laws – providing a useful place to stash all those inconvenient souls – whether it’s corrupt politicians, the annoying neighbor who steals your parking spot, or, yes, the occasional mother-in-law.
“If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.”
General William Tecumseh Sherman
Throughout history, Hell has been less of a fixed location and more of a flexible concept - a blank canvas onto which each culture, religion, and disgruntled poet can project their darkest imaginings. From Dante’s infernal city planners mapping out elaborate circles of punishment, to fire-and-brimstone sermons promising eternal barbecue pits, the idea of Hell is endlessly adaptable, evolving with the times like the world’s most sinister franchise. Who knows, in a few years’ time we might simply be referring to it as “H”.
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
William Shakespeare
Even today, Hell’s greatest asset is its versatility. It’s both a place of eternal damnation for the wicked and a convenient metaphor for life’s lesser hardships. Your morning commute? That’s rush hour Hell. A conversation with that overly chatty colleague? Small-talk Hell. And of course, let’s not forget family reunion Hell, where questions about your love life and career prospects rain down like fire and brimstone. Hell is everywhere, and nowhere, and always the perfect punchline to human suffering. But its origins are far more elaborate than mere modern inconveniences.
“Hell, hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent,”
Frank Sinatra
Takes 1 thru 6:
The ancient Greeks had a practical approach to Hell, calling it Hades. Hades was a somber place ruled by a guy whose idea of a good time was kidnapping young women and feeding them pomegranate seeds.
It wasn’t so much a place of torment as it was a dreary afterthought. Everyone - saints and sinners alike - ended up there eventually, wandering aimlessly in the gloom. Tantalus, the king who served his son as dinner, was punished by having food and water forever out of reach - a special Hell straight out of a sadistic diet plan. Sisyphus, another offender, got an eternal workout regimen, pushing a boulder up a hill just to have it roll down again and again. By Greek standards, it was all very personalized. Hades: not so much eternal torture as an awkwardly designed, one-size-fits-some afterlife.
“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way,” Robert Frost
The Norse had Niflheim, a frozen wasteland for those unfit for Valhalla’s drunken revelry. Apparently, Hell can be fire, ice, or an endless buffet of questionable fruit, depending on where you’re from. In contrast to our modern, fiery Hell, Niflheim is cold - inhumanly cold, in fact. Here, the damned freeze in the eternal shadow of Yggdrasil, the great world tree.
Sorta like living in a never-ending winter with no blankets, hot chocolate, or a warming after-dinner cognac. Considering the Norse gods were essentially rowdy Vikings with axes and a penchant for drinking contests, you can imagine they designed Niflheim with as much comfort as they would a ski lodge - except with no slopes, no sun, and no booze. So, really, more like Siberia than anything else.
“An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.”
Victor Hugo
And of course, religions took to Hell like moths to a flame (pun intended).
Islam’s Hell, Jahannam, is a multi-tiered system. A tailor-made experience, with each sinner earning a place according to their particular moral failings. The truly wicked are subjected to molten metal drinks – kinda like a really bad dive bar, where the bartender has a sadistic sense of humor and absolutely no booze on tap.
Jahannam feels clinical, with a precise, accountant-like judgment system that ensures the punishment fits the crime. It's efficient, we'll give it that, but there's something off-putting about an afterlife that has a better filing system than your local DMV.
“Hell is not in torture; Hell is in an empty heart,”
Khalil Gibran
In Hinduism, Hell is Naraka, a place where souls are boiled, dismembered, or otherwise inconvenienced until their karmic debts are paid.
Unlike the more eternal varieties, Naraka comes with a light at the end of the tunnel - once your sins are cleansed, you’re reincarnated, possibly as a rat or a mosquito, but hey, at least you’re out. It’s sort of like serving time with the hope of parole. Though, given the cyclical nature of Hindu cosmology, it’s a bit like knowing you’ll eventually be sent back to the same prison only in a different form. You just hope the next time you're there they’ve upgraded the place.
“How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man.” Johnny Cash
Buddhism’s Diyu is one of the more colorful imaginings of Hell, a full 18 level department store, with each floor offering its own brand of discomfort. This is a place where you’re not just suffering for your sins, but for the sheer inconvenience of existence itself.
One level has sinners being ground into powder, while another involves mirrors that force you to confront your true nature - a psychological nightmare more suited to a wellness retreat than a Hell. Still, the punishments are meant to purify the soul rather than punish it. We can almost imagine a brochure for Diyu describing it as "pain with a purpose." Though granted, that doesn’t make the lakes of blood sound any more appealing.
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven, or hell.” Buddha
Now, let's talk about the Christians, perhaps the most diligent architects of the afterlife. It’s fair to say that, when it comes to Hell, they’ve gone above and beyond. In the great theological arms race, Christianity emerged victorious in the "most terrifying afterlife" category. No small credit goes to Dante Alighieri, who added a touch of class with his Divine Comedy, giving Hell what’s arguably its greatest marketing campaign. Dante’s nine circles of Hell are like the world’s worst theme park, where each circle had its own exquisite punishment, tailored to different sins.
A place for liars, thieves, and people who talk during movies. Commit fraud? You’re a human pinwheel, forever spinning in agony. Gluttons? Buried in mud, pelted by rain. Violent? River of boiling blood. Betray your friends? That’s the special VIP section: frozen in ice, just an icicle’s breath away from Satan himself. Truly, one has to admire the attention to detail.
“All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
Dante Alighieri
But why did Christianity turn Hell into its pièce de resistance? Likely because, of all the religions, it had the most to lose - or gain - through fear of the afterlife. Christianity spread rapidly across Europe and the Middle East, and what better way to cement the faith than to promise eternal paradise or eternal barbecue? A little healthy competition between Heaven and Hell kept the faithful in line, not to mention the church in charge.
After all, why tempt fate with a minor indiscretion when eternal punishment looms?
“Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.”
John Milton
Earth, meanwhile, is a bit like Hell on a budget. Sure, there’s no pitchforks or lakes of fire, but you’ve got taxes, telemarketers, and reality TV stars. You could say Hell is just Earth without the option of going home at the end of the day.
Now, as any good decision-maker would make a checklist of plusses and minuses before making their next career move, let's make a quick ranking of these versions of Hell - their positives and negatives - from least to most unbearable.
1. Hades (Greek): It’s not great - endless wandering in the dark - but at least you’re not on fire or being eviscerated. It’s a little like waiting for a delayed flight, with no refunds to be forthcoming.
2. Niflheim (Norse): This isn’t some cozy ski trip. Eternal winter with no hope of thawing isn’t exactly the warm reception offered by others. But at least you’re numb, and we think numbness beats flaming agony any day.
3. Jahannam (Islam): With multiple layers of punishment, it’s a bureaucratic Hell for the damned, and molten drinks sound like a particularly unpleasant evening not very-well-spent. Still, it’s probably better than freezing next to Satan. (That’s a Christian oxymoron if ever there was one.)
4. Naraka (Hinduism): The punishments are nasty, but there’s a clear expiration date. You’ll be back in the mortal coil soon enough, even if it is as a dung beetle. It’s the prison sentence but with parole – arguably the lightest of all the options.
5. Diyu (Buddhism): A little more intense than Naraka, with 18 levels of inventive torture, but the goal is purification. Indeed, there actually is a goal here. Sure, it’s gruesome, but there’s a certain zen to knowing the suffering is temporary and purposeful.
6. Hell (Christianity): Eternal flames, sulfur, brimstone, and Dante’s painfully specific circles of torment? This one’s hard to beat in terms of sheer unpleasantness. Christian Hell is the full “fire and brimstone” package, topped off with a side of eternal regret. In our opinion, it wins - if you can call it that - as the Hell we’d least want to visit.
“You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.”
Davy Crockett
Time off for Good Behavior: How about escape routes?
That's where things get tricky. Escape routes from Hell have always been a complicated affair, but different cultures have found their own inventive ways to wiggle out of eternal damnation - some more practical than others.
“Hell, I never voted for anybody, I always voted against.”
W.C. Fields
During the Middle Ages, escape routes from Hell got a little more, shall we say, transactional. Enter the indulgence, Christianity’s version of a celestial bribe. For the right price, you could buy your way out of the flames - or at least get a significant discount on your time there. Imagine it as the first iteration of "pay-to-play."
The Church, ever the entrepreneurial spirit, allowed people to purchase indulgences, which would absolve them of sins or, at the very least, shave off a few centuries from their sentence. It was spiritual extortion with a very important receipt.
This system was perfect for the wealthy sinner who might’ve felt a little guilty about their misdeeds but didn’t quite have the time or inclination to go through the whole repentance process. Why spend years praying when you could just pay up and keep living the good life? You could even buy indulgences for your dead relatives - because nothing says "I love you" like buying Aunt Mildred out of Hell.
The only problem, this theological loophole was eventually called out by that stickler Martin Luther, whose 95 Theses essentially shut down the heavenly credit system.
“Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.”
Frank Borman
In the end, medieval Christianity turned the afterlife into something of a marketplace, where the right connections and a full coin purse could get you a premium fast-pass to Heaven’s gates. Hell, it seems, wasn't just for sinners - it was also for those who couldn't afford an indulgence.
“One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.”
H.L.Mencken
If you weren't lucky enough to be a medieval Christian with a pocket full of indulgences, your options varied depending on where (and when) you called home.
For Islam, the system isn’t exactly designed for last-minute getaways. There’s no spiritual buy-one-get-one-free deal here. In Islam, your deeds are weighed on a divine scale - good on one side, bad on the other - and you're judged accordingly. The best way to avoid Jahannam is a lifetime of piety and good deeds. Now, there's some wiggle room for those who make a last-ditch effort - repentance is always an option - but you’re still expected to put in some serious groundwork.
Think of it like a merit-based system where the points really matter, and no amount of schmoozing with the boss will get you through the pearly gates without some serious soul-cleansing first. There are no shortcuts here, no indulgences to buy, and certainly no bribing your way out. Jahannam is strictly a "no get out of hell free" zone.
“What is Hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Hinduism, on the other hand, plays the long game. You don’t exactly escape Naraka - you endure it. However, there is that built-in safety net: reincarnation. So, sure, you might spend a few millennia boiling in a pot or being gnawed on by demons, but eventually, your karma will be purged, and you’ll be reborn. The catch? What you come back as is a bit of a roulette game.
You could score big with a cushy life as a wealthy merchant or be reborn as a cockroach, destined to scurry around kitchen floors for the next cycle. It’s less of an escape and more of a revolving door where you’re always hoping for a better deal behind door number three. Sorta like being stuck in a bad video game where every death just means you respawn – and respawn – and respawn.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Winston Churchill
In Buddhism, there’s a glimmer of hope, but it requires more patience than anyone stuck in Hell is likely to muster. Diyu is a place of purification, not eternal punishment. But purification takes time, lots of it - so much so that it makes Dante’s Inferno seem like a weekend retreat. Escape isn’t so much about getting out as it is about leveling up spiritually until you reach Nirvana. Meditation helps, but reaching Nirvana is like trying to pay off a mortgage on a minimum-wage salary - it’ll happen, but probably not in this lifetime - or the next. Buddhists believe in karma, and if you've accumulated too much bad karma, you’ll work it off, bit by bit. The goal is enlightenment,
but it's more of a slow burn than a jailbreak. In the end, it’s like a cosmic layaway plan that requires serious inner peace - and a lot of patience with the whole "hellish ordeal" thing.
“The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”
John Milton
Ancient Greece, as usual, had a slightly more pragmatic approach. You didn’t escape Hades, per se, but you could bribe your way into a more comfortable section of it. The Greeks believed in proper burial rites, and if you didn’t get them, you were stuck wandering the banks of the River Styx like an underfunded tourist. Pay Charon, the ferryman, with a coin placed under your tongue, and he’d take you across to the afterlife.
Now, what part of Hades you ended up in depended largely on how you lived. The truly heroic ended up in the Elysian Fields, a sort of eternal garden party, while the rest ended up in the Asphodel Meadows, where everything is…fine. No flames, no demons, but endless monotony, which is arguably its own form of Hell. If you messed up badly enough - murdering your family or offending the gods - you might end up in Tartarus, a pit of eternal punishment where the term "escape" is just something to laugh about. So, your best bet in ancient Greece was to live a good life and die with a coin handy. Otherwise, enjoy the scenery of the Styx.
“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”
Isaac Asimov
As for the Vikings, Hell was damned cold. Not metaphorically, but literally. If you didn’t die in battle and earn a spot in Valhalla, you ended up in Niflheim, where the dishonorable dead went to freeze for eternity. It was a place ruled by Hel (the being, not the location - yes, they got creative with the naming). The escape plan here? There isn’t one. Your only way out of Niflheim was to have died more valiantly to begin with. Vikings weren’t big on second chances;
if you didn’t earn your way into Valhalla by dying with an axe in hand, your afterlife options were slim. You could freeze, shiver, and hope someone remembered to sing your praises later on, but otherwise, forget an escape hatch - it’s eternal winter for you.
“Go to Heaven for the climate, to Hell for the company.”
Mark Twain
In short, if you weren’t a Christian during the Middle Ages with indulgence money in your pocket, your escape from Hell required either saint-like virtue, heroic death, or an obscene amount of patience. For most of history, Hell was less a place you escaped from and more a place where you were meant to learn a very painful, very long lesson - hopefully before you got sent back for a rerun.
What Are My Options: Beyond Hell, the afterlife is packed with plenty of other grim destinations that, while not exactly heavenly, are at least marginally less horrible. The spiritual real estate market is vast, and for those who don’t qualify for Heaven (or its equivalents), there are a few other places you might end up - depending on your religious persuasion and how much slack the gods are willing to cut you.
“If I’m going to Hell, I’m going there playing the piano,”
Jerry Lee Lewis
Purgatory:
Perhaps the most famous middle ground between Heaven and Hell, Purgatory is Christianity’s version of the cosmic bureaucratic waiting room. It’s where you go if you’re not quite bad enough for Hell but not squeaky clean enough for Heaven. There’s no eternal torment, just the gnawing anxiety that you might be called for an interview at any moment.
Sins get purged through suffering, but not in the Dantean, soul-tormenting kind of way. It’s more like a painful spiritual cleanse that involves waiting around, reflecting on your moral failings, and generally feeling uncomfortable for an indeterminate period. No flames, but plenty of uncomfortable chairs.
“Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory,”
Abraham Lincoln
Limbo:
If Purgatory is the waiting room, Limbo is the VIP lounge for the morally ambiguous.
Catholic theology divided Limbo into two parts: the Limbo of the Fathers and the Limbo of the Infants. The former is where righteous souls went before Jesus opened Heaven’s gates (picture old philosophers, Moses, and Aristotle hanging out, waiting for the afterlife bouncer to let them in). The latter, much sadder version is where unbaptized infants were believed to go - because nothing says theological mercy quite like eternal limbo for babies who didn’t make the baptism cut.
In Limbo, there’s no suffering, just an endless absence of God’s presence, which, depending on your view of divinity, is either utterly tragic or… mildly disappointing. In short, Limbo is like the spiritual equivalent of being stuck in a pleasant but dull hotel lobby, while you wait for your room to be cleaned upstairs.
“We can embrace love: it’s not too late. Why do we sleep, instead with hate? Belief requires no suspension, to see that Hell is our invention.”
Dean Koontz
The Elysian Fields:
For the Greeks, The Elysian Fields (or the Isles of the Blessed) were the VIP section of the underworld - a paradise reserved for heroes, demigods, and the morally superior. If you were exceptional enough in life, you didn’t end up in the dreary Asphodel Meadows with the common souls but got to bask in eternal sunshine, feasting, and general pleasure.
It's essentially the Greek version of retirement in Florida, but with fewer shuffleboard games and more divine feasts. There’s no torment or monotony here, just endless reward for the valorous and virtuous. If you’re lucky, you might even get to stay in Elysium permanently.
“A fool’s paradise is a wise man’s hell.”
Thomas Fuller
Asphodel Meadows:
If you were an average ancient Greek who lived an average life - neither too heroic nor too sinful - you wound up in the Asphodel Meadows. It’s not Hell, but it’s definitely not Elysium. Think of it as the underworld’s 1950’s version of grey suburbia, where souls just kind of drift around, not really doing much of anything.
There’s no torment, no fire or brimstone, just an eternity of bland existence. It’s like spending forever in a featureless landscape with no Wi-Fi and no conversation - eternally hovering between conscious and unconscious thought. In the Greek system, this was what the majority of souls could expect - an afterlife as mundane as a Monday morning commute.
“Why can't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone.”
Jimmy Durante
Valhalla:
If you were a Viking warrior, you weren’t gunning (or hatcheting as the case may be) for Heaven or Hell - you were aiming for Valhalla, the eternal mead hall of the gods.
Reserved for those who died bravely in battle, Valhalla was ruled by Odin, and it promised an afterlife filled with drinking, feasting, and fighting - repeatedly, in a rather bloodthirsty cycle of glorious battle by day and celebration by night. It’s not for the faint of heart (literally, if you didn’t die heroically, you weren’t getting in). But for a Viking, Valhalla was the ultimate posthumous hangout: you’d get to drink endless mead, eat like a king, and fight to your heart’s content - only to rise again and do it all over the next Groundhog Day.
If you weren’t cut out for Valhalla, you might still make it to Fólkvangr, Freyja’s hall of the slain. It was kind of the same deal - warriors hanging out and feasting - just with a goddess rather than Odin hosting the event.
“Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.”
Charles Bukowski
Bardo:
In Tibetan Buddhist belief, there’s a middle state between death and rebirth called Bardo. It’s a sort of spiritual limbo where the soul undergoes trials and transformations while awaiting its next incarnation.
Bardo is more of a transitional state than a permanent destination - your soul isn’t resting here forever; it’s just passing through. But what happens to you in Bardo can determine your fate in the next life. Handle the process well, and you might level up in the reincarnation game. Mess it up, and you're back to square one, possibly as a housefly. The stakes are high, but there’s no eternal torture, just an intense period of reflection and transformation.
“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
Oscar Wilde
So, while Hell is certainly the most dramatic option on the afterlife menu, it’s far from the only one. Some cultures offer a bit more nuance, allowing for purgatorial pit stops, spiritual holding patterns, or even eternal vacation spots for the deserving. In the grand scheme of things, Hell is just one of the more undesirable addresses in a very crowded afterlife neighborhood.
“If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix.”
Hunter S. Thompson
Plans of Action:
If you’re already there, though, there are still a few ways to make the most of it. For one, establish dominance early - familiarize yourself with the local landscape, learn who’s in charge (spoiler alert: it’s not you!), and develop an ironic appreciation for the décor. Flames, brimstone, lakes of fire - it’s all a bit heavy-handed, but you might as well admire the commitment to the aesthetic.
“When you go to Hell, John, tell them Daisy sent you.”
Quentin Tarantino
The End of it All:
And so, we’ve traveled from the frozen cliffs of Niflheim to the boiling lakes of Dante’s Inferno, and the concept of Hell has taken on a myriad of forms, depending on what kind of torment people thought their enemies deserved.
Hell, in its many forms, is ultimately what we make of it – a bespoke nightmare tailored by our cultural fabric to fit the non-conformists and rule-breakers among us. Or, more precisely, what our culture has decided those who don’t follow the rules deserve. There's something for everyone in this all-you-can-suffer buffet. But, if history has shown us anything, it's that humanity's vision of Hell is just a reflection of our deepest fears, wrapped up in the cultural equivalent of a “No, really, everything's fine” shrug.
“Hell is paved with good Samaritans.”
William Holden
Perhaps the real truth about Hell is that it’s never been about divine punishment at all. It’s more like a cosmic timeout corner, an existential threat to keep people in line. Religion, after all, learned early on that the carrot of Heaven isn’t quite as motivating without the looming stick of the horrors of Hell. And let's be honest, Hell has always been more creatively entertaining than Heaven's bland perfection. After all, who wants to sit through endless sessions of harp music when you can read tales of eternal suffering that make your worst day at the office look like a picnic?
“Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.”
George Orwell
In the grand scheme, Hell’s endurance speaks to something far more human than divine. We’ve always needed a place where we can send all the people and things we can’t stand, and Hell is as good a metaphor as any. It’s all about perspective. One person’s inferno, after all, is just another person’s typical Tuesday. Hell is the ultimate punchline to a cosmic joke, reminding us that, while life may not always be fair, there's always the comforting thought that somewhere, in some eternal pit, a telemarketer is roasting on a spit. And really, isn't that justice enough?
An Eskimo hunter asked the local missionary priest, “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?”. “No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me??”
Annie Dillard
Sorry for being a bit tardy….. that was some view of hell! Hmmmm so yes Christians definitely used it as a carrot and stick, but Hinduism, yikes…… I think Christian hell is better…… coming back as a cockroach or a snake, sounds like just another hell to me!
Dante was a dark and angry soul! He was particularly specific about misdeeds and the corresponding punishments! Clearly he was wrong by a great many people.
I think burning in hell would be way better than listening to certain TV evangelicals for eternity.
And you didn’t touch upon what I think is the most controversial part of Christianity!!!!
God’s Grace! Jesus died for our sins, washed away the sins of the eart…
Fascinating fodder for the next family forum...
Just what I hoped you'd write: a comprehensive history of hell and why humans created the concept. Just brilliant, Chris! Thank you so much. My favorite blog post of yours yet. Now ... How else may we suggest you invest your time? Hmmm ...