Hell Is Not For Children

This post is inspired by "Why I, an atheist, am afraid of hell" by CosmicSkeptic. I am also an atheist who had the fear of hell affect me periodically for years after I discontinued the beliefs. The conditioned emotional response was quite strong and depressing for the first few years. Although it has substantially mellowed in recent years, I still notice it from time to time.  I agree with Alex that it is child abuse regardless of the intentions. Fear is a primary emotion which can all too often occur even when it is completely contrary to the rest of a person's mental states. Conditioning which affects fear has been shown to sometimes last a lifetime. Fortunately, our other mental capabilities can compensate. But the dichotomy between the emotion and intellect can be disconcerting, even dangerously so. I think that it is valid to say that instilling unnecessary childhood fears which can negatively impact people into adulthood is abusive and unethical. This is especially the case since Hell is a fiction.

If it did exist, it is immoral. Hell would be immoral and an indication of God's immorality. The belief is that we will be punished for eternity if we don't make all the correct decisions in our short physical life. Believers in this expect more morality out of humans than they expect from their god. Only the worst tyrants and religionists have resorted to long term torture. And the scale adds to the evil. I have seen estimates that there have been more than 110 billion people on earth, which includes the current 6 billion. A bit over 50% of the current population are either Christian, Jewish or Muslim. Odds are that the majority of the others will not convert before they die. Go back a few thousand years and few people heard of the Abrahamic god. Now, it's a bit ambiguous regarding what happens to nonbelievers who have never heard of the biblical God or Jesus Christ. But we are still talking billions of people in Hell.  What is the justification? Any explanations are very shallow and only convincing for the conditioned believers. So how many billions of people will be eternally punished before the god is satisfied?

I believe that Hell is probably the worst idea out of many bad ideas in religions.