“Hell Is Other People”

John-Paul Sartre was known as an author and playwright but the term ‘existentialist philosopher’ pops up now and then. The quote is from a line in his play ‘The Exit’.

The quote comes at the close of the play No Exit which Sartre wrote in 1943. No Exit depicts the arrival of three characters – Garcin, Estelle, and Inez – in hell – which happens to be a drawing room. As the characters struggle to understand what sin has led them to hell, and what their punishment may be, they quickly gather that there is no torturer. No executioner. No flames to burn their souls eternally. It’s just the three of them, trapped in a deadlock. The other characters in the room are the punishment, as it were.

“Hell is for other people”.

I heard the still notoriously brilliant but deceased atheist, Christopher Hitchens, say this during one of the many public debates he had with assorted believers. If your detractors and critics believe in heaven or hell then it’s clear that they have options for reward or punishment to guide their behavior. It’s also clear that an option of one over the other implies that the faith that offers both is prone to failure. “Other People’, the Deists, will end up in either place. The Atheist won’t.

Even before my father started to suffer the reality of Alzheimer’s and dementia he would joke that when he died, we should just throw him over the fence – into the weeds – so that he could stay on the land. He said that he did not want to get ‘smoked’. He had long stopped talking about God, or heaven, or hell, or where he might end up after he died. The cost of throwing a body over a fence for disposal is negligible. There might be an odor or scavenger problem. Check with local bylaws.

The cemetery is still the generally accepted place for dead people. Those with the resources could have their dead bodies chemically prepared for the afterlife and then planted six feet under, in an expensive box, which is in turn encased in a cement sarcophagus. The burial plot must then be marked with a stone or other symbol. The average cost of a funeral ranges from $6571.39 to $12654.86. Ronald Reagan’s funeral cost $600,000,000. Kim Jong II was so loved, $60,000,000 was spent to send him off. Evil politicians spare no expense to be remembered as good people. They made life on earth a living hell for so many people. The deposed Shah Reza of Iran died in exile with in excess of $20,000,000,000 in assets. Shah Mohammad Reza is buried in the Al Rifa’i Mosque in Cairo His funeral cost more than Ronald Reagan’s.

Topsy turvy nonsensical evil, and other madness has been ginned up and unleashed on the world. What else do you call it? To use a term normally reserved for spiritual matters seems fitting somehow. This is an apocalypse after all. When God gets around to sending all of the evil people to hell it won’t be too soon. Let them burn and suffer for eternity with each other as company. There are so many of them. Let there be enough room. They will have a lot to talk about in between screams. Their virtue signals will at long last be silenced and replaced with pleas for and unearned mercy.

Hell is other people.

Hell is for other people.

Peace on earth.