Hi, all!

I found this website yesterday, and I loved the whole "Rights" concept; the whole "10 Commandments minus God" bit. So I was talking with another guy today, a man with his PhD nonetheless. He is very smart in academics, but in life as well. I am not sure if he is athiest, but he left the Catholic Church at age 12 (I was also around that age when I too left the Church).

Anyway, he said something very interesting today. Now, I know both sides (those who are religious and those who are athiest) both have their morons who don't listen and their only reason for their beliefs, or lack thereof, is because the other one is "stupid". However, this man and I both find more than enough Christians whose reasons we should be religious is "because it's just not right if you aren't religious", and then they talk in circles; we never meet the people that make sense and listen to our side of the story as well.

So this one obnoxious Christian was trying to tell the man about how he will go to Hell if he doesn't believe in God and such, and this man said, "That's great; I'd actually prefer Hell; that's where all the interesting people are!" And if you think about it, it is true. Some of the most interesting people in history had some form of an aspect (being athiest, not believing in God, committing mass genocide) that would condemn them to Hell, but those are the interesting folk. I am not making it sound as great as the man described it today, but basically his thoughts were, "Even if I had a choice, I'd still chose Hell over Heaven".

So there you go. I thought it was a neat idea, since everyone seems to think Hell is bad. And here, this guy would take Hell over Heaven, if given a choice.

That is indeed a neat idea, and perhaps the most famous reference to it is more than 100 years old: "In heaven all the interesting people are missing," Friedrich Nietzsche. I believe Mark Twain said something along these lines as well, but I can't find the quote so I may be mistaken.

You might be interested to know that the concept of going to hell to be with the interesting people is not unknown to all religious people. I have heard it specifically (if, generally, lamely) addressed a number of times.