Paranoia Fuel / Religion & Mythology

• The paranoia fuel is part of what makes the concept of Hell so potent, by playing on the fear of what comes after death. You are condemned into eternal punishment just because you transgressed this one small rule.
  • There's also the idea that God can see everything you do, including your own thoughts.
  • There's also the notion that since it seems since God is all knowing, he can actually see the future, including if you are going to Hell or Heaven. Meaning all those stuff about how you have to choose your own destiny is all lies.
    • Which increases the paranoia and Tear Jerker. You can be the nicest, sweetest person in your town. Construct and run no-kill shelters for abandoned pets, adopt disabled orphans, fund foster homes, donate to the poor and needy, etc, but you'll go to Hell anyway because God has seen to it before you were born.
    • It should be noted that, in most of the Christianity-based religions at least, that God does not determine where you are going in the afterlife from birth. He merely knows what's going to happen, as one's own actions determine their place after death. Though in Calvinism—also known as double predestination, as in God predestines those to be saved and those not to be saved—and several traditions do state he does so, based on several biblical quotes that imply that.
  • There's also the fact that even if you do everything right, follow every rule, go to church every Sunday, save puppies from fires on the weekends- there's still a huge chance that your beliefs are the wrong religion, or even the wrong sect, and you're going to hell anyway.
• According to Classical Mythology, the world is ruled by a pantheon of Jerkass Gods who will utterly screw over mortals for the most petty of reasons, or no reason at all. Yes, yes, if you managed to piss off the gods knowingly^note Although let's face it, if you were stupid enough to knowingly anger a God, you probably deserve whatever punishment they dish out. It happened to Tantalus... or unknowingly, get ready for a very hard life, if not worse. Being Properly Paranoid won't even help: there's a reason why cruel Irony is a major theme in Greek drama. Oh, and by the way, destiny rules everything and you have no control over your life.
  • It is also possible to get a command from a god that, if you follow it, would anger another god, but if you don't follow it would anger the god that gave the command.
• Gnosticism makes it even more horrifying. Your entire existence is pretty much to be food for an evil god and his archons, unless you adhere to exceedingly ascetic rituals and ways of life that may or may not allow you to escape from physical reality. And sometimes, the god and his archons a do not feel like waiting for you to die.
  • And anyone who acts like The Fundamentalist might be under Archon control. Just how many people do you know who act that way? Along with anyone who acts like a Hollywood Atheist, too. The bugger's playing both sides.
• There's the Maori legend where the woman got banished to the moon just for insulting it (in the same vein as saying, "Stupid phone!" when it glitches out).

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