The Vacation From Hell

hellThis is a picture of a person suffering in hell. He (?) is swimming in a pond of blood. The surprising thing is, this is an exhibit that you can go see in a museum. A whole museum full of images of people suffering in hell. Children go to this museum with their parents.

You might be thinking, “What kind of sick-o Fundamentalist thing is this? This is like what Jack Chick would do if he decided to turn one of his comic tracts into a museum! Such a bizarre ‘educational effort’ could only contemplated by the most hardcore Fundamentalist!”

Wrong! It isn’t Fundamentalist at all.

It’s Buddhist.

Yes, that’s right. I know that the media loves to portray Buddhists as peaceful and calm and serene and enlightened, the kind of people whose faith would never believe in something as offensive as hell, but those media reports give you about as much of a sense of what Buddhism is actually like as Taco Bell gives you a sense of Mexican food is like.

In reality, Buddhists have all kinds of ideas about what hell is like, who goes there, what specific punishments are meted out for what sins, etc. To be fair, Buddhist hell is more like purgatory since you can get reincarnated and try again after suffering in hell. It’s still gruesome as anything, though.

What is fascinating is that Buddhists would build museums and theme parks with hell exhibits. If that were done here in America, it’s would be regarded as kitchy at best and offensively revolting in all likelihood. Yet it’s something apparently is an established trend over there. The photo above is from this hell museum in Singapore. There’s also an amusement park with a hell exhibit in Vietnam. And yet another hell museum in Japan. WARNING: Not for the faint of heart! Some material definitely offensive to Western sensibilities.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

64 thoughts on “The Vacation From Hell”

  1. Jimmy,
    Do you think we can know for sure that there are people in hell (not that we know which particular people are there)?
    The current Roman Catholic teaching seems to be that we don’t know if there are people in Hell (a la Hans Urs von Balthasar).

  2. “I know that the media loves to portray Buddhists as peaceful and calm and serene and enlightened, the kind of people whose faith would never believe in something as offensive as hell, but those media reports give you about as much of a sense of what Buddhism is actually like as Taco Bell gives you a sense of Mexican food is like.”
    Why is it that everything bad that ever happened in Europe (eg. wars, holocaust) always seemed to get blamed on Christianity or the Church (or the Church’s silence) or Monotheism…but Bhuddhism NEVER gets blamed for anything bad that’s happened in East or South-East Asia?
    I never hear the media deride the Dalai Lama for his “silence” during the Khmer Rouge killing fields holocaust or blame Bhuddhist inspired imperialism for the Japanese rape of Korea.
    (nor should Bhuddhism get blamed for these things…I’m just trying to point out media inconsistency)
    And then when a certain religion that shall remain nameless just happens to actually advocate constant warfare and conquest…it’s labelled a religion of peace and tolerance?
    Billy

  3. Thanks for the info. That’s a side of Bhuddhism that I was unaware of.
    Yeesh. Don’t think my kids would like these “amusement” parks.

  4. Bhuddhist inspired imperialism for the Japanese rape of Korea.
    Incorrect, it was Shinto-based imperialism that was the national religion at the time. Buddhist organizations were forced to be silent or face harsh penalties, and one notably large Buddhist group in Japan, Nichiren-shu, was in serious trouble for vocally opposing the war.

  5. The “Courts of Hell” are not Buddhist tradition, they are from Chinese mythology. There is one statue of the Buddha, and the site and other people have remarked that it doesn’t belong there. It was added later after the gardens were built. The Chinese place a lot of importance on their mythology, just as the Greeks and Vikings did.
    Chinese mythology has nothing to do with Buddhism and vice versa. They are and always have been seperate and different. There are no Gods in Buddhism nor any hell. Perhaps you should read the links you post before forming your opinion on the matter.
    Again, these are not Buddhist amusement parks, but parks about Chinese Mythology.

  6. No, you are wrong. They are NOT Buddhist.
    Buddhism, for the ignorant, is a Tibetan tradition, that was merged with Chinese mythology FOR THE CHINESE.
    These are not Buddhist gardens, they are Chinese gardens.
    Do your research before you enter libelous and erroneous comments about something you obviously know nothing about.

  7. Saying that Pure Land Buddhism represents Buddhism as a whole, is like saying the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and it’s ilk are representative of the whole of Chritianity including Catholics.
    It is simply a misnomer to state that this is representative of all Buddhism, when in truth it is a melding of Pure Land and Chinese Mythology and is not supported by traditional Tibetan Buddhism.

  8. From your blog: “Is he completely unaware of what the Mass may look like to outsiders? “Take, eat, this is my Body?” Most people (well, some) get that the Eucharist isn’t about cannibalism, but, you know, most likely they’re being diplomatic and PC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
    What exactly is the point of your Cathlolicism-trashing blog? Have you no better things to do, like, say, following the teachings of Budda?
    Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

  9. I re-read Jimmy’s post. He didn’t condemn buddhists for anything . You, sir, are paraniod. Not that it’s surprising, since you seem to also think that you are the representative of all buddhists.
    I, for one, certainly don’t think I’m my religion’s leading figure.

  10. “What “Catholicism-trashing” are you foaming about?”
    I was posting responses to “Buddhist Jihad.” Check out his blog (if you want to get sick). I guess I should’ve been clearer.

  11. “What “Catholicism-trashing” are you foaming about?”
    kindly re-read my posts before you attack me. thank you.

  12. Buddhist Jihad sounds like s/he is suffering from desire. Maybe s/he should go and try to reach nirvana and stop trying to strive against the material world.

  13. stop trying to strive against the material world
    You can leave that to striving Catholics.

  14. “I read your foam.”
    Call it what you will. I care not.
    “The Buddhist blog doesn’t make me sick. ”
    Then you must neither like Bill Donahue, nor reverence the Holy Eucharist, if you don’t find this offensive:
    “Is he completely unaware of what the Mass may look like to outsiders? “Take, eat, this is my Body?” Most people (well, some) get that the Eucharist isn’t about cannibalism, but, you know, most likely they’re being diplomatic and PC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
    “Maybe you have rabies.”
    That’s what I call projection 🙂

  15. More gems from BJ:
    “Santorum, one of those nominal “Christians,” who is really a mere *****-Christian, among other things supports a government ban on marriage between two consenting adults who don’t share Santorum’s religious beliefs and behaviors. ///Oh, wait a second, did you say that Jesus isn’t in the Old Testament? Why not? Isn’t that where all the fun stuff really is? I mean, really, if He thought everything in the Old Testament was sufficient unto itself, and literally true, then why did He bother teaching that New Testament stuff? Short-term memory loss? Ya think? ///I’ve had right-wing Roman Catholics ramming their specific religious beliefs and behaviors down my throat, I’ve had Talibangelicals ramming their specific beliefs and behaviors down my throat. And now I’m ramming mine right back.”
    YEAH, Jim. Definitly nothing there that would offend orthodox Catholics, or those who call themselves ‘tolerant’.

  16. Why should I be offended by the blowing of the wind? If you are offended, it is for your own good. Bless the offender.

  17. Just a following in the footsteps of Bill Donohue, a Buddhist Bill Donohue, if you will, loudly and stoutly defending one’s faith against the faithless. You know, like all those Christians who call Buddhism “Satanic.” Like Al Mohler.

  18. “I didn’t read his blog, David, but I take it he’s just a plain old bigot?”
    Eggs-actly, Bill.
    a Buddhist Bill Donohue, if you will, loudly and stoutly defending one’s faith against the faithless. You know, like all those Christians who call Buddhism “Satanic.” Like Al Mohler.
    An eye for an eye huh? I thought you said (on your blog)that you liked the golden rule. Guess not. BTW, Bill never said Buddhism was satanic.
    You great fan of Bill Donahue.
    No, I’m not. I don’t like when he graphically repeats what the anti-Catholic bigots do/writ/say/paint/sing.
    He your Buddha.
    No, tonto, he is not.
    You follow in his footsteps.
    Thanks for the compliment.

  19. Jim,
    why did you persecute me for becoming angry about BJ’s hypocrisy? His bigotry doesn’t anger you, yet my righteous indignation at his mockery of the my God in the Eucharist is called ‘foaming’ by you? Why is that so?

  20. What you call “righteous indignation” is but another name for foam. Like I said, if you are offended, it is for your own good. Bless the offender, as offense is blessing for the offended.

  21. “…’righteous indignation’ is but another name for foam.”
    Unique definition.

  22. What you call “righteous indignation” is but another name for foam. Bless the offender, as offense is blessing for the offended.
    May God bless you, Jim. Oh, and BTW, foam is that thing on the top of your latte, not a name for my words. If my post is ‘foam’, then so is your unjust response. I suggest you read Jesus’ choice words for the lawyers and scribes. Is that ‘foam’?

  23. It is insulting, Jim, that you read a fellow(?) Catholic’s justified outrage at a mockery of the Blessed Sacrament, and you condescendingly call it ‘foam’. If I am angry on behalf of our Lord, what is it to you? Does it offend you?

  24. David B.
    Actually, I didn’t quite understand Jim’s comment to you as well as it appeard, at least, to me, self-contradictory.
    That is, the very fact that he answered you in the following manner:
    I read your foam. The Buddhist blog doesn’t make me sick. Maybe you have rabies.
    AND
    What you call “righteous indignation” is but another name for foam.
    implies a degree of having been ‘offended’ on his part by the remark you had made; otherwise, why respond in that manner?
    Furthermore, his part about “righteous indignation” would seem to be contradictory, too, in light of the fact that his attitude toward you and your remarks was hisrighteous indignation” against you and, thus, FOAM (by his own definition).
    I am equally surprised that instead of blessing you, his Offender, he proceeded to commit the very same act against you that he accused you of.

  25. Fella sounds kinda ignorant… If he bothered to find out anything about the Mass, he may have come on to the “this is a hard saying” area of the origin of the Mass?
    Sounds like an average troll. (Not to be confused with an Azeroth Troll)

  26. They’re out to get you, better leave while you can
    Don’t wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man
    You wanna stay alive, better do what you can
    So beat it, just beat it
    You have to show them that you’re really not scared
    You’re playin’ with your life, this ain’t no truth or dare
    They’ll kick you, then they beat you,
    Then they’ll tell you it’s fair
    So beat it, but you wanna be bad
    Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
    No one wants to be defeated
    Showin’ how funky and strong is your fight
    It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right
    Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it

  27. Checked out the most recent troll. Just another anti-Christian who wouldn’t have anything to say if it wasn’t against something. That is, doesn’t have anything to be FOR.

  28. Esau, I would hardly put you in the anti-Christian category.
    What happened is that I posted then walked away and didn’t see the “please type these random letters” thingie.
    Esau, why on earth would you think I’d consider you a troll? (shaking head)

  29. Actually, I thought you saw my lyrics to “Beat It”, didn’t see my name and mistook me for a Troll! ;^)
    Hope you had a wonderful and blessed Easter, though!
    God bless!

  30. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” Together, we will troll the seas of mankind.

  31. Esau, you are not a troll, of course, but you did put a song in my head that I could have done without. Three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys, please.

  32. … but you did put a song in my head that I could have done without.
    My bad, bill912! ;^)
    Actually, ever since I posted those lyrics, that song has been playin’ in my head as well (although, I keep picturing Weird Al instead)!

  33. Together, we will troll the seas of mankind.
    Leaving behind the fishsticks. Aha! That’s why fish on Fridays. (silly reasoning off)

  34. Jim,
    “Foam: to froth at the mouth especially in anger; broadly : to be angry.”
    I don’t recall foam issuing from my mouth as I wrote my comments.
    “No attitude is needed to call a spade a spade.”
    Really? That’s news to me. It seems that one at least needs to think that a spade is, indeed, a spade to say what you’ve said to me (and that, in itself, is an attitude).
    I think that you have always been the one in this discussion who has been ‘foaming’ with anger over my comments. Your words are laced with it. Ergo, you’ve transferred your feelings to my words.
    Jim, give me DAMN GOOD REASON why you are angry at me. I think that it must be because you secretly sympathize with BJ. Otherwise, why be offended? (unless you’re bored)
    [I have the distinct felling that I’ve gone back in time to have one last argument with my younger sister 🙂 ]

  35. ONE. LAST. THING. Did you know that if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rubbarb does?

  36. Jim, give me DAMN GOOD REASON why you are angry at me.
    Angry? I’m filled with joy! Like I said, if you are offended, it is for your own good. I’m delighted that you are presented with opportunities for your own good. Not angry. Delighted.

  37. David, Jim started his posts being a classic troll, baiting until he could anger someone. Don’t take his bait.

  38. “David B., why do you care?
    (whether Jim is angry at you)”
    Because he’s repeatedly attacked me, calling my posts foam, calling me a spade, and asking me if I had rabies. I just would like to know why the heck he’s doing this.
    Angry? I’m filled with joy! Like I said, if you are offended, it is for your own good. I’m delighted that you are presented with opportunities for your own good. Not angry. Delighted.
    In a way, your first post DID express happiness that I should suffer offense:
    What “Catholicism-trashing” are you foaming about?…I read your foam.The Buddhist blog doesn’t make me sick.
    You issued Ad Hominem attacks against me: Maybe you have rabies No attitude is needed to call a spade a spade.
    You attacked my indignation: What you call “righteous indignation” is but another name for foam
    BUT This isn’t antagonistic. or hateful. or rude. or un-Catholic. Right
    I’d say that it was nice talking to you, but I’d be lying. I’ll pray for you.

  39. Mary Kay,
    I know he’s a troll. pretending that he’s not trying to be a jerk when that’s his sole aim. I’d remind him of Jesus words, if I thought he was a Christian: “ whatsoever you did to these… you did unto me.

  40. “a hell exhibit in Vietnam”. How ironic, considering Jeremiah Denton’s book, “When Hell Was In Session”, about his experiences as a POW.

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  42. I was a practicing Buddhist for many years and when I saw this post, the first thing I thought of was the Wheel of Life (and Death and Rebirth), showing the six realms of beings or existence. Admittedly, the stream I had most contact with was Tibetan, but I definitely remember seeing the realm of the hell-beings on that wheel. But I think the best thing to remember here is that we are dealing with a term which is translated as “hell” for us westerners and that is a loaded word for us. For Buddhists it refers to a place-time of intense suffering brought about by one’s own unskillful actions and lack of wisdom and failing to learn, practice and realize the Dharma. One has earned it, so to speak, and after that karma is exhausted, then one takes rebirth in another realm.
    So the truth is, Buddhism both teaches and doesn’t teach that there is something like Hell. Buddhism recognizes that our own actions lead to consequences for ourselves and others. We either work toward enlightenment or we don’t. Hell in that view is not so much a place of punishment, as many westerners think of Hell, as the place where one lands by neglecting to use his precious human birth well. One ends up totally selfish, not caring about others, with no compassion, with no love, filled with hate and greed, which state sounds perfectly Hellish to me. It’s got a name in Tibetan, but I can’t begin to remember how to write it, much less say it. 🙂
    Buddhists are not trying to figure out who is in Hell. They are, however, trying to light a fire under lazy practitioners who aren’t practicing. To keep them from having to spend any time there. And there’s also the view that any time we are taken over by negative states, we make a little visit to Hell in this very life. 🙂

  43. Buddhists are not trying to figure out who is in Hell.
    I can’t say I’m aware of any Catholics who are particularly concerned with knowing who’s in hell, either. And the Church isn’t; there is no one who is canonized by the Church as being in hell, only heaven.

  44. Buddhists are not trying to figure out who is in Hell.
    I can’t say I’m aware of any Catholics who are particularly concerned with knowing who’s in hell, either. And the Church isn’t; there is no one who is canonized by the Church as being in hell, only heaven.

  45. Catholicism does say of certain classes of people, that they are in hell. For ex. Catholicism says those who die without the virtue of faith, for ex., as atheists, all go to hell. FWIW, Jimmy Akin touched on this on the radio one or more times and the times he did so, I recall him saying that we may have some difficulty in discerning who is presently an atheist since one who describes himself as an atheist may not actually be an atheist, really (not due to a desire to deceive others but due to some kind of psychic malfunction — this was the example that Akin gave).
    I recall someone criticizing a would be sign “All non-christians go to hell”; if one replaces “non-christians” with “those who are truly atheists who persist in atheism til death” then that statement would, according to Akin, and moreover, according to the traditional view, be true.
    According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, FWIW, the church can in theory declare that a particular human individual went to hell. As you have noted, prescinding from statements in which things may be said more in passing, the church has not ever done so. JP2 was believed by many to doubt that Judas went to hell and even to doubt as to whether any human is predestined to hell (despite the Catechism’s statement that God “predestines no one to hell”, some manner of predestination to hell, even be it a different sort than predestination to heaven and even be it termed reprobation instead of predestination, is as a concept, part of Catholic patrimony — Ludwig Ott discusses it for example … though his discussion has its critics).
    I think to the extent that a tension humanly exists that one should let one’s view of God (which is of course more central in the hiearchy of truth) inform one’s view of hell as opposed to the reverse. The Greek does not say that hell will endure without any kind of end whatsoever; the Greek means “on to the end of ages” — that doesn’t mean that there need be an end (so arguments that supposing an end for hell supposes an end for heaven are not legitimate since the issue is not that it implies an end but merely that it doesn’t imply that there isn’t one — just as with the word “til” or “until”). If the nature of the world considered eschatological or at the eschaton or past some eschatological event is mysterious to our comprehension, then just as Genesis may have been in human aspiration a divinely ordained accomodation to our understanding (and I would argue even to our present understanding) as regards creation, so also may it be even more so here. In the face of such a situation, an expression such as “on to the end of ages”, even if it have an idiomatic sense that might lead to interpretations contrary to fact, would not be untruthful as the purposes of the divine discourse there is not to unlock the hidden secrets whose nature might exceed the cogitative capacity of man, but to order our beings to salvation, for as the work of the recent synod stated “with regards to what might be inspired in the many parts of Sacred Scripture, inerrancy applies only to ‘that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation'” … the salvific purpose ISTM of the scriptural teaching on hell is not to elucidate us as to the nature of God or any other thing in some direct fashion (i.e. being able to show what this entails in terms of our understanding of the nature of love which is God, authentic human love, and so forth) but rather elucidating truth of a moral dimension in terms of the ordering of our being and lives to God/heaven … one can see for example in the discourse that refers works of mercy that the discourse there is ordered to inspiring us to truth and goodness as it relates to works of mercy that present themselves to us on earth. I think that one has in mind that the primary author is God, that questions of rigid factuality are replaced by questions of “What is God trying to teach me through these words?” — for like any author, one might suppose that the literal sense of scripture is not something cashed out atomically in the case of the divine, but is rather understood in relation to the broader purpose of the author. And perhaps like e.e. cummings, certain things which might be called “error” in the author might in the case of the divine author, happy to clothe himself with the fabric of fallible men and writing imperfect and at times erroneous, even theologically, contents himself so for far from obscuring the message or word of the divine, it highlights it – the word of divine humility and divine condescension which finds its greatest mythic expression in the one who in myth clothed himself with quarks and gluons, inhabited by bacteria and parasites, so expressing solidarity not only with man, but with all creation. It is this message of solidarity that I think Jesus would inspire us to, not dwelling on, if you will, theologically refined gossip as to who is or might be in hell.

  46. Catholicism does say of certain classes of people, that they are in hell.
    Perhaps, but the Church doesn’t specify that any man (as distinct, say, from angels) is in those classes.
    The purpose of these classes is primarily to help individuals avoid the undesirable consequences of the actions that characterize those classes, rather like having a sign by the swimming pool that says, “No Running“.

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