Hadephobia Is the Fear of Hades

Are you terrified of spending eternity in a filthy pit of everlasting destruction? A horrible place where demons cut off your eyelids, forcing you to watch your worst memories over and over? And succubi peel layers off your skin, replacing it with a coat of maggots? A stratum of damnation in which the fire beneath your feet is never extinguished and “forever” translates to the blackest darkness? Where you will exist in perpetuity, tormented, weeping, and gnashing your teeth, with no one but the devil himself to hear your burning soul howl in terror? If so, you might be suffering from a condition known as hadephobia, or the “morbid, irrational fear of hell.” According to various mental health sites, hadephobes experience physical symptoms, including palpitations, sweating, nausea, and hyperventilation, while the condition’s psychological side effects include “feeling out of control, trapped, unable to escape, and an intense feeling of impending doom.” Like a lot of chronic fears, hadephobia can be brought on by a real-life trauma, with the fear of hell attaching itself to real terror. Unsurprisingly, it’s prevalent in people who have been raised in deeply religious environments because to fear hell you have to believe in it. And, according to a 2009 poll by the Pew Forum, 59 percent of Americans think that if you burrow deep enough into the earth you’ll arrive in Satan’s domain, where he and his demon friends will be torturing evildoers for eternity. To get an idea of what these poor bastards go through, I spent some time cruising online Christian forums. Almost every hadephobe I came across wrote about being afraid, confused, and losing the will to live. Also, almost all of them spelled hell with a capital H. Here are some highlights from my time trolling through Satanic cyberspace: “Clinton” writes: “I barely have the will to live… I always have nightmares of demons and snakes. I worry about a God that I despise [sic] might torture my atheist friends. I’m always so scared that I sometimes wish I could die so I could finally not live in fear of the unknown of what is on the other side.” “Depressed Girl” expressed a similar sentiment: “I can’t tell you how much it scares me; I can’t even imagine myself burning in the fire. I know I did sins, I even repent but surely God will punish me, I will be burned in the Hell. I am not able to enjoy life, all the time I think about Hell and its punishment, now I am experiencing living Hell.” “Somedude” worries about his non-God-fearing friends: “Most Christians believe that if you accept Jesus then you’re saved. That’s fine for me… but what about everyone else? Would a loving God allow anyone to suffer forever? And how would anyone enjoy heaven knowing that people are suffering eternally?” It’s a good question that attracted varied responses. “Pray about it” seems to be the advice most often offered by posters, while others suggest seeking medical assistance. Posing as a hadephobia sufferer, I started a few threads of my own to see what advice my fellow forum lurkers had to offer. I quickly discovered that navigating Christian chat sites can be tricky. I got distracted at every turn, first by choosing a mood icon—I decided on one called “praising”— then by figuring out how to earn “blessings” (you have to buy them), and finally by the topics themselves. “Is muscle relaxation dangerous?” asked one. Another: “Do angels judge us on our appearance?” I hope not, because I’m not sure hell is big enough for all the ugly motherfuckers out there. After four days, I not only had a few replies but someone had bought me 300 blessings. The first comment, from a guy with 1,066,312 blessings, was pretty bleak: “There is just the forever worm and uncross-able huge chasm. There is just judgment and death. Forever life for true Christians and forever (no coming back) death for those who are evil. The two will not share consciousness together again.” A nice lady with 100,684,682 blessings posted a Bob Dylan quote—undoubtedly from his Christian period—and said: “Your symptoms are but one of the many symptoms of the destructiveness that can accompany religion. I would examine your motivations of the faith and consider what is best for your mental health.” Another man—and proud vessel of 696,926 blessings—posted a clip-art picture of a stoner dude holding a guitar in front of a blazing sunset, with the caption, “If you believe that there really is a fiery place where people are burned alive forever without end, then it would be normal and natural to be paralyzed by fear of it. Thankfully, there is no such place. The bible specifically states that the wages of sin is death, not eternal torture in hell (Romans 6:23). I think it is a shame that people try to scare you with fairytales of eternal torment.” It was about this time that I came to wholeheartedly like this site and the advice I was being given. In an effort to be objective and glean a dissenting opinion, I also spent some time chatting to Rick Lannoye, author of the book Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There Is No Such Place as Hell. Offering hope to hadephobes everywhere, the text is a factual deconstruction of the concept of hell, using scripture to show that Jesus never cited such an awful place. Rick told me: “I was converted to Evangelicalism at the tender age of 14. I understand how the lack of adult reason makes one vulnerable to emotion conditioning, to become so afraid that hell might exist.” He added that it’s irresponsible of adults to instill this fear in the “minds of innocent children who are not old enough to discern the difference between real and unrealistic threats.” It took Rick more than 20 years of extensive research, compiled in Hell? No!, to shake off his fear, and he hopes that his book can help others who have been “subjected to the manipulation of the scriptures by false teachers.” He guarantees that “you can come to a sure knowledge that God will never, ever hurt anyone, not for a moment, much less for eternity.” My favorite advice, though, comes from a Christian forum poster who goes by the name “Iranian.” He says: “Live life as any normal person, and if God sends you to hell he’s a jerk.” Amen to that, brother.