“I don’t think hell exists,” said The Right Reverend John Shelby Spong. “I happen to believe in life after death, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with reward and punishment.”
Spong is a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church, and from 1979 to 2000 was the Bishop of Newark in New Jersey, USA.
He shared his view that hell was invented by the Church in order to
control people and his comments have since gone viral, reaching tens of
millions of people worldwide (see video below).
Religion invents ideas and concepts just like any creative human
enterprise. Some of these ideas have helped many people find meaning and
fulfilment from their lives. Yet many of the concepts invented by
religion have aimed to get people to conform to a system of behaviors
that guarantee an intangible reward in the afterlife.
As Spong says:
“Religion is always in the control business and and that’s something
people don’t really understand. It’s in the guilt-producing control
business and if you have heaven as a place where you’re rewarded for
your goodness and hell is a place where you’re punished for your evil
then you have control of the population.”
https://ideapod.com/hell-invented-church-claims-bishop/
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