I had to get rid of any idea of hell or any idea of the afterlife. That's what held me, kept me down. So now I just have nothing but contempt for the institution of the church.

I was tormented. Fear and trembling. And a sense of doom. A literal belief in hell. Hell for eternity. With devils chasing you for eternity with pitchforks. I trembled. I couldn't go to sleep for fear I might die and wake up in hell. I was in agony.

Fools that will laugh on earth, most weep in hell.

The strongest intimidation, by the way, is the invention of a hereafter with a hell everlasting.

If there's hell below, we're all gonna go.

Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seen running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.