It’s almost Halloween, which means there are a lot of people going to haunted houses. I’m not one of them, but obviously there are enough people who love getting the poop scared out of them to keep the haunted houses in business. I say more power to them. Most haunted houses have a theme, so you may find yourself walking through the laboratory of a mad scientist, browsing the shelves of a haunted general store, or visiting a cemetery whose inhabitants won’t stay underground where they belong. Scary, but not necessarily life-changing.
Then you have the Christian haunted houses. They’re typically known as hell houses, and about the only similarity between them and regular haunted houses is the word house. Yes, they have props and actors to scare you, but hell houses are set up to literally scare the hell out of you. As you walk through a hell house you are subjected to actors portraying what most Christians consider to be sins: abortions, drinking, using drugs, Satanism, lust and anything else that may possibly make your naughty bits tingle. Then, after witnessing sin upon sin, you get to see the consequence of such debauchery, which is burning for all eternity in the flames of Hell. But don’t think hell houses are all doom and gloom. You have to have the yang to the yin, the light to the dark, the Hutch to the Starsky. So once they’re finished regaling you with stories of how horrific hell will be, you get to see what it would be like to go to Heaven instead. Spoiler alert: Heaven seems way better and a lot less painful than Hell, even though you would be spending eternity with the likes of Jerry Falwell.
This brings me to one of the things about Christianity that seems so ridiculous to me, and that is that in order to get people to believe, fear tactics have to be used. And not just mild “pee your pants a little” fear, either. This is “shit yourself, scream like a girl, cry for your mama, need years of therapy” sadistic terror. I just think that if there was a god, getting people to believe in him out of fear wouldn’t be necessary. Gods are supposed to be pretty powerful, so showing up every now and then shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? He could visit Earth once in awhile, maybe take a few hundred people out to dinner and let them get to know him. Then if he turned out to be one righteously cool dude, people would want to hang out in heaven with him post-death due to his goodness rather than wanting to because the only alternative was being turned into a briquette.
Sure Halloween is supposed to be scary, but hell houses go so far past that you can’t see them anymore. If your religion claims to be about love, but can only get adherents by being decidedly unloving, don’t you think it’s time to rethink your religion?
Rachel Birdsell is a freelance writer and artist. You can reach her at rabirdsell@gmail.com
Halloween Scare Tactics
Rachel Birdsell
It’s almost Halloween, which means there are a lot of people going to haunted houses. I’m not one of them, but obviously there are enough people who love getting the poop scared out of them to keep the haunted houses in business. I say more power to them. Most haunted houses have a theme, so you may find yourself walking through the laboratory of a mad scientist, browsing the shelves of a haunted general store, or visiting a cemetery whose inhabitants won’t stay underground where they belong. Scary, but not necessarily life-changing.
Then you have the Christian haunted houses. They’re typically known as hell houses, and about the only similarity between them and regular haunted houses is the word house. Yes, they have props and actors to scare you, but hell houses are set up to literally scare the hell out of you. As you walk through a hell house you are subjected to actors portraying what most Christians consider to be sins: abortions, drinking, using drugs, Satanism, lust and anything else that may possibly make your naughty bits tingle. Then, after witnessing sin upon sin, you get to see the consequence of such debauchery, which is burning for all eternity in the flames of Hell. But don’t think hell houses are all doom and gloom. You have to have the yang to the yin, the light to the dark, the Hutch to the Starsky. So once they’re finished regaling you with stories of how horrific hell will be, you get to see what it would be like to go to Heaven instead. Spoiler alert: Heaven seems way better and a lot less painful than Hell, even though you would be spending eternity with the likes of Jerry Falwell.
This brings me to one of the things about Christianity that seems so ridiculous to me, and that is that in order to get people to believe, fear tactics have to be used. And not just mild “pee your pants a little” fear, either. This is “shit yourself, scream like a girl, cry for your mama, need years of therapy” sadistic terror. I just think that if there was a god, getting people to believe in him out of fear wouldn’t be necessary. Gods are supposed to be pretty powerful, so showing up every now and then shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? He could visit Earth once in awhile, maybe take a few hundred people out to dinner and let them get to know him. Then if he turned out to be one righteously cool dude, people would want to hang out in heaven with him post-death due to his goodness rather than wanting to because the only alternative was being turned into a briquette.
Sure Halloween is supposed to be scary, but hell houses go so far past that you can’t see them anymore. If your religion claims to be about love, but can only get adherents by being decidedly unloving, don’t you think it’s time to rethink your religion?
Rachel Birdsell is a freelance writer and artist. You can reach her at rabirdsell@gmail.com