Pagan Coffee Talk

Leaving Hell Behind

• Life Temple and Seminary • Season 5 • Episode 9

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We open listener mail for a simple question that's really not simple: how do you leave Christianity without carrying the fear of hell everywhere you go?  We discuss that liberation isn’t just a belief shift; it’s a nervous system retraining.

We talk about the long shadow of early conditioning and why old fears flare at night when the mind runs hot. You’ll hear the tools that actually help: meditation, journaling to map triggers, and honest conversations that reality-test inherited stories. We also share what changed for us over decades. If you’re navigating a shift from Christian fear to pagan freedom, or you simply want peace with the unknown, this conversation offers a clear path forward, one breath and one belief at a time.

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Pegging Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials. So we've got a little bit of fan mail. Ooh, we got fan mail. We got fan mail. We got fan. Which by the way, if you go to Buzzsprout.com, you can send us your own fan mail. Please, Dude. This comes from Elmira, New York. Just wanted to say hi. I love your podcast. It's a part of my morning ritual with my hot cup of tea. I've been recently on a path of my own spiritual awakening, and for someone who used to identify as a Christian, how would you work to overcome the overwhelming fear of going to hell for all eternity? You know, that is a deep-rooted It really is a deep-rooted question.

SPEAKER_02:

It it because again, you're if you're raised Christian, you know, like we were, you were taught this from day one.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think this is something that a lot of pagans deal with because a lot of us, most of the ones that I've come across, we've all come from some type of Christian background. Right. Catholic, Baptist, that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02:

But again, this is but this was drilled into your head as a kid. Right. You you you do a bad thing, you go to hell. Right. You know, and I I'm I'm sorry, I just I cannot believe in a God that would do that. You know, hey, I'm gonna give you one chance to get this right, and I already know you're gonna get it wrong, so I've created you just to go to hell. Right. It's basically the stunt I get off of it. Now I understand that's the argument, but we're talking about that feeling. Yeah, it's it's that we're talking about that.

SPEAKER_01:

It is it is a fear, it is a real fear that because I'm all of a sudden following this path that's not Christianity, God's gonna punish me.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I still I went through kind of that when I converted to the pagan path. And well, I don't even know if I really converted, it just sort of happened with me.

SPEAKER_02:

But uh actually, I think it's a little bit easier if it just happens. I think it is too. All right, because again, I never really had that problem. Right. All right, to be quite honest with you, because well, you know, I didn't I didn't necessarily believe in Christianity as a kid. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

There was just too many things that didn't see I did, even though I recognized a lot of those inconsistencies and a lot of discrepancies and I just I couldn't do it. I mean still believed in it.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, because you still have the I st they still won't answer the question. Where did the other religions come from?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. How did the dinosaurs fit into this?

SPEAKER_02:

How did yeah, where where where did all this other stuff that actually happens? Right. You know, and even then, I hate to be this way. It wasn't like Christians created society or even the Jewish community. Right. Most of them were created by pagans. Babylon was pagan, Rome was pagan.

SPEAKER_01:

So but again, back to the question, I mean, it's it's just something that I think the longer you're on the path and depending on your studies, yeah, and depending on how well you once you start working out where in the world you're getting your guilt from and how to stop it, those fears start to go away. Right. I was I was gonna say it depends on your meditations, right? Because for us, meditation is probably one of the best ways to deal with that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_02:

It is a great it is a great personal therapy session.

SPEAKER_01:

It really is. It really is. So again, just make sure you've got a good support, right? Um but yeah, that's a great way to work through it. Because like you said, you gotta get to the root of the problem.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, because again, at the end of it, sin is nothing but guilt.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

You feel guilty for doing something. Right. Now what you gotta ask yourself is why do you feel guilty about doing that action? Once you solve that problem, things seem to work themselves out a whole lot easier.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and you have to also realize guilt guilt was created to maintain order. Order, yes, and to keep people in line. It is the it is the stick versus the kick. So once you realize that, then I think that that also makes it easier to work through and to get past this this fear that, oh God, I'm gonna go to hell.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, rationally, we can do this. I mean, rational with our rational mind, way we're talking right now in the whole whole nine yards, it's a little bit different when you are sitting there in the middle of the night, you know, can't sleep, tossing and turning, and you have all these random thoughts in your head. Right. You're you're you're alone with your thoughts. And your mind's just racing. Racing. Those fears will come back up. Oh, yeah. All right, because again, there's still a part of you, this is this was told to you since you were a kid. So it's hard not to.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I think it also depends on how long how long you were part of that religion.

SPEAKER_02:

It is to me, this that this is the same thing as when we refer to people as he and she automatically.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

We're we're basing it on patterns of behavior and certain visual cues to let us know which one to use at the time. All right. And I'm not trying to bring this in there, but hence the reason misgendering happens all the freaking time. Right. Because it's not something conscious we necessarily always do. Right. It's something like blinking. We can control it sometimes, sometimes we can. This is the same thing with feeling this. I'm going to go to hell.

SPEAKER_01:

Are you with me? I am, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's the point is, is it's been so ingrained. Ingrained. The I think the longer you were a Christian, the harder it is to get past that. Yes. If you left the church when you were in your early teens, it might not be such a big deal to get past that. If you left in your 20s or your 30s, then you're definitely going to have an issue.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, I I can see where people that are in their 40s and 50s will have a whole lot more problems versus because we've seen that anyway when teaching people, trying to get them to break those some of them.

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna say we see it all the time when people come to us for classes.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So, um, but yeah, I think those are all things that aid or contribute to the difficulty level.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. So I mean, we're trying to take some, you know, other things into account here on how hard it's gonna be to absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not gonna be, okay, can I just focus on this one thought and get to the root of it?

SPEAKER_02:

No, and there's multiple thoughts attached to it. I mean, I I don't know how to explain this. This whole fear of going to hell, yeah, it's it's it's it's laced in your behavior, your thoughts, and you know, and especially in Christianity, because they say you can go to hell just for thinking about an act just as much as doing an act. That one sin is just as bad as the other. Yeah, one sin is just as bad as the other, yes. And I don't that makes no sense to me. So just because I think about having premarital sex with some that you're you're already a sinner. Right. You're already going to hell. Don't do that. I mean, at some point or another, somebody's always gonna you're gonna turn around at some point and go, hmm, nice car. Uh technically, you just covered your neighbor's property, yeah. Property. So when you're sitting there and you're meditating, you start to see those things, when you're starting to see, I mean, just like what we talk about with the um Wicca, the threefold law, yeah. How when you actually start to sit there and think about it, how absurd it is to try to live that way because you can never unhurt anyone. Right. What I saw in the Christian community and all that is no matter what in the world you do, we're all going to hell because we all sin.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's part of the core teaching of Christianity is that we are all sinners.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. I mean, at the end of the day, we're all sinners. You're going to die in sin, so it means you're going to go to hell.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, that's you know, that's something that I never truly understood. You you've been saved. Supposedly. But we're still sinners. But you're still still sinners.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, that's that's that's that's uh and I'm I'm sure some Christian will hear this and go, oh no, no, no, I'll explain this, blah, blah, blah. Please do. Please do. Because that don't make no sense to me.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I was a big part of the church growing up and into my, you know, into my late teens, early twenties. I understand where that comes from, but it makes no sense to me.

SPEAKER_02:

I have an easier time with the concept of somebody going to hell and being punished than someone going to heaven. Really? The Christian heaven I was explained to did not seem like anything I wanted to do. Not for all eternity. I do not want to be in church 24-7 for the rest of eternity.

SPEAKER_01:

No, and that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, that's literally what I was told for Christianity is heaven is nowhere where you go and you just worship God all day. Right. All time, nothing, you don't stop.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What's the you know, I I hate to be this way.

SPEAKER_01:

But for some people, that's that's the dream. That's the idea. That's that's the goal.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't get it. That just does not seem like you're not doing anything, you're just worshiping and praying. Right. It seems like the afterlife would have a little bit more to it than Jen, hey, you're gonna die and go to church for all of that. There's your reward. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's I I get where you're coming from.

SPEAKER_02:

They don't have a problem with that, but they people worry about going to hell.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, again, they're you're made to fear it to keep you in line. Line.

SPEAKER_02:

I I know.

SPEAKER_01:

It it it's the whole dogma and yeah, and heaven, heaven is the ultimate reward for that. For following orders, if you will. Right. So, you know, when it comes down to it, that's all it is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

In my opinion, anyway. And I think in yours that most of the hell are just the constructs.

SPEAKER_02:

Again, the whole heaven and hell thing, it is a construct to me, and they're not real. That they're they're just tools that religions use to control the population. Right. Because again, we have to control our population. If not, we're sure we do, yeah. I mean, you you have to stop crime. You can't just let people go around just raping the people non No, you can't. So you have to do some of this to some extent, and I understand that.

SPEAKER_01:

And then um and ultimately it's not uh well, I say it's not a bad way to do it. I mean, it works. Well, it brought us to where we are today.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, the system worked well enough to get us to to this point. Absolutely. Does that make sense? So I'm not faulting the system that they were using because again, it wasn't just the Christians, a lot of religions do this, right? You know, uh because you what you got the whole karma thing and it's and it's used basically about the same way that they do. It is, yeah. So when did you how bad was your fear once you started to convert? Because you've never, I mean we've been married for 30 something years now, I believe. It's not anything.

SPEAKER_01:

That's not something we've ever talked about. No, we haven't. Um for me, it was and you know, for the longest time I held on. I well, I claimed that I held on to a lot of my Christian beliefs. Yeah. Even starting on this path.

SPEAKER_02:

And well, even to this day, you still claim you still hold on to a lot of Christian beliefs.

SPEAKER_01:

Not like I used to. All right. Um I I've pretty they're pretty much gone out the window. There's there's I don't know, I guess there's some aspects that maybe I incorporate, but it's not a lot. But for me, the idea of hell, it I had to come to terms with what it was. And it was a it was a quite a journey to to get to the point to realize okay, hell's a construct. Yeah. Hell hell and guilt were all things, and the fear were all things done to keep me in some semblance of the union, if you will. Yeah. So it was it was a challenge. But for me, it wasn't a big challenge.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Because my pagan path just kind of happened.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And so I didn't have a real struggle with that. I had already been out of the church for two, three years. Yeah. And so I was already kind of weeding out bits and pieces here. Bits and pieces because it no longer suited me.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So I think that made it easier for me. But I know there uh I have met some people who they've really struggled with it. And the best advice that I can give them is, you know, meditate.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, see now here here I'm gonna I'm gonna stick a crawl in all of this, all right? All right, because I personally believe when we die, we experience whatever we think we should get. Right. We we're we're sort of judging ourselves. I think we're kind of programmed that way. Do you do you make the do you make sense when when we talk about that judgment of life? I think we sort of judge ourselves. And when we die, if we honestly believe we were bad people and we're going to hell, that's literally what's gonna happen. Right. You're literally gonna see that, and God forbid you come back. That's the story you're gonna tell of how in the world you were exactly possibly about to be tortured on a chair and thrown into a lake of fire because that's what you actually believe was gonna happen. Right. You know, same thing about going to heaven, if you actually believe you're gonna and at some time later, those fallacies fall away. Right. And you start to realize this is not what I thought it was.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I believe that too. It took me a while to get to that point. Yeah. But it it fits. It makes sense.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I mean, and when you talk to because when you start listening to the stories of life after death, and you hear the stories and you start seeing what people believe, and they start to see what they think they should get.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and it's funny because some of those actually come from non-Christians, and when they come back, they say they saw this angel or they saw Jesus or this some being. Right. And then from that on they they've converted to Christianity. Indeed. Right. But to me, you were sort of creating a right. That's where is exactly where I was going with a sort of a delusion. Right. Because let's face it, when we die, we don't want to believe something bad's gonna happen to us. We want something nice, we want something peaceful.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, you know, we won't, and most of all, we want something. Right. We want something. I'm not gonna sit here and say, I don't occasionally have the fear. What if we're all wrong and I die and nothing happens? And nothing happens. There's just I'm just dead. Yeah, there's nothing after this. I mean, it's possible. It is possible. I mean, I will admit that. There is a possibility. But then on the other hand, yeah, it's a possibility. The Christians are right, and when I die, I will go to hell. And but I still have a problem with that thought.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, see, here's okay, here's the thing. Hell, even in the Bible, hell is described as an absence from God. Yes. That's all it's described. It's never been described as a lake of fire. Or torture. Or a lake, yeah, a place of torture and torment.

SPEAKER_02:

The lake of fire, the lake of fire, and the only time I actually think it's ever mentioned, and not even referred as hell, but that they opened them opened up the earth and threw the beast into the lake of fire. Yes. And that's the only time it's ever mentioned. Which was probably a volcano.

SPEAKER_01:

In my opinion. I mean, I just point is that hell, again, hell is a construct.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So hell is nothing more than a separation from God. So if you die and there's nothing you're separated from God, then you're separated from God. That's hell.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Hell's not a place of torture, it's just a place of absence. Right. Yeah. So is there really anything to be afraid of?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, the thought I could see how this would scare early man when you're like trapped in a cave. Or you've had those experiences where you're in a dark place all by yourself for long periods of time and you kind of go a little woo-hoo. Yeah. You know, I d I imagine an eternity of that. True. I could see where some people would see that in and of itself as a torture.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. And then translate that into what hell would be. What hell would be.

SPEAKER_02:

And hence the reason why I always thought of it as more of an absence of everything. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

If it does exist or whatever. You're just floating in the abyss. Right. I mean And there's nothing there.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, actually, I'm not even going to say that. You could probably I think even maybe you might even have another soul sitting right beside of you, you'd never know. You're just completely cut off and only have to deal with yourself and your own thoughts. Kind of kind of like a straitjacket for your whole body. For your soul.

SPEAKER_01:

For your soul, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Where it's literally just a deprivation tank for your soul. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a deprivation tank. Excellent. Yeah. So again, you know, but some of us enjoy that, so I well, I enjoy it. I don't know if I enjoy it for eternity.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. This is the only way I know to get rid of those feelings is to sit there and to meditate on them and logically analyze. Logically analyze them and go through your your your your memories and stuff like that. Start where the things that bring that thought up, start working on why does that bring that up?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And sit down and talk it over with other people. I mean, that's just like we're doing here. I mean, that's that's one of the best ways to come to new conclusions and to new thoughts.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't I sometimes I don't think people actually realize. Yes, we do sit around all day and talk about this crap. Yeah, we do. We literally do. We do. We talk about other stuff, though.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but no, we we do we yeah, we talk about this stuff, so go figure. All right, you about ready for some coffee? I believe I am. Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at life templeseminary.org for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, Discord, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.

SPEAKER_00:

We travel down this trodden path, a maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing pyres, and so it is the end of our days, so walk with me till morning breaks, and so it is the end of our days, so walk with me till morning.

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