Hell!

"Hell" is a widespread concept, a word in ridiculous usage. That "ridiculous usage" refers to both the amount and the strange conceptual usages: "hot as hell", "cold as hell", "hella chill", "hella anything". It's one of those almost-anything kind of words, like many of our dirtiest expletives, an exclamation overused and become commonplace as a word of emphasis. All such words (shocking or routine, depending on the company) must have come from a background of serious oaths, or they would not be used in the manner they are today.

And it isn't just in America that this development occurred, I'm sure. In just about any religion, there is a concept of afterlife (Buddhism is some kind of exception, but there were plenty of nearby religions to fill the culture's empty shoes), and an idea of a penal and painful destination was part of this concept. I don't think its sole American practice to use this foundation of terror in forceful language. However, it does seem weird to us to hear a threat of, let's say, "an endless cycle of reincarnation", or perhaps, "dying without a weapon in one's hand". It would be strange for us to here shouts like, "go down to the deepest grave!" or "may Hades take you". We can only understand the intended intensity in our own culture. "Go to hell!" has plenty of force to it, although it has come to be used in a wide array of occasions, tones, and meanings.

Over time, some of this widespread usage must have corrupted the original image of Hell and the authorial intent of its mentioners. Today, we are confronted by the incredible influences of folk theology: the red faced devil with goat horns and a pitchfork, the Dantean physicality, the idea of Satan's lordship over the sinister realm, or almost any other detail someone could think of. From my admittedly deficient study of the Bible, Hell isn't detailed. There are the Hebrew manuscripts, which refer to "the grave"-- a darkness and absence, as well as the Greek portions-- the "Hades" which smells like sulfur, has that signature blazing torment, and is equally devoid of the deity.

I'm not sure what is meant by the "smells like sulfur" bit. Sulfur, I've heard, smells like a match being lit; it has a musty burning smell. It does not refer to hydrogen sulfide, which would have made "my fresh hell" smell like rotten eggs, nor does it refer to the sulfur compound mustard gas, used in World War Two to incapacitate soldiers. I think the "sulfur" that was meant was just supposed to refer to volcanoes or brimstone or just heat in general ("it smells like a place that burns"), but I can't stop thinking that those other two associations do help describe hell. It is a rotten place of incapacitation. It is an eternality cut off from a rejected presence, a place where we can no longer function, a place rotting from lack of life.