That caveat aside, De Villier’s book remains a scholarly exegesis on why our species felt the need to punish non-believers in cruel ways for an eternity. Near the book’s conclusion, De Villiers notes how traditional African societies generally lacked a heaven or hell. But, initially at least, I often found reading Hell and Damnation, A Sinner’s Guide to Eternal Torment to be something akin to, well, hell on earth with its endless passages quoting ancient texts describing one gruesome scene after another. After Lateran argues De Villiers, “The communitarian ethos of Christianity’s founders, with its injunctions to charity, gave way to rage.” Reading Hell and Damnation led De Villiers to one inescapable conclusion: Thank God for The Renaissance and The Enlightenment. But De Villiers makes up for lost time in the epilogue.

Source: thestar March 12, 2019 12:00 UTC