by Ice Dragon

Created on: February 03, 2009   Last Updated: February 27, 2009

The ancient Greek realm of Hades can conjure images of a shadowy realm in a cave deep underground, populated by vaporous entities that are the souls of those who died. Or, if you're a Disney freak like me, a noxious pool of green goo in which the souls of the dead swirl for eternity (ala Hercules).

The mental images of Hell can be more distubing, depending on which movies you've seen. There's the cartoon version that Yosemite Sam and other toons visited courtesy of Bugs Bunny, there's the huge realm of fire and brimstone from the Bible, and the uber-chaotic-fiery-no-physics-rules-apply versions from movies like Spawn. There's also the Hell from the Piers Anthony books where there are several sections of Hell, tailor made for the various sins.

And, just to round things out, there's the Hell sung of by death metal bands, where demons cavort around the damned, Satan sits upon a throne of fire, and the souls are the playthings of everything that lives there.

Granted, both realms are the places where souls go after dying. However, Greek Hades is the place where ALL souls go after death, regardless of station in life. After someone dies, two coins are placed either over the eyes or in the mouth. The soul then travels to the underworld with the coins, where they pay the boatman, Charon, to take them over the river Styx and to the actual realm of Hades proper.

This is the place that Persephone goes every year, and her mother Demeter grieves causing winter to envelope the land. Hades, in most literature, is portrayed as a rather dull numbing place, with no joy, happiness or much sound at all. Things tend to be represented in shades of grey.

The Christian Hell, however, is reserved for the wicked and sinners. The souls are tormented by demons and burned in lakes of fire to atone for the sins committed in mortal life. There are some sects of Christianity that believe that once the soul is completely purged of sin by the "cleansing burn of hell-fire", the soul then ascends to Heaven. Others disagree, and claim that once there, the soul never ascends and remains in Hell for eternity to be tortured.

Of course, the sinners differ greatly from sect to sect. Some groups insist that anyone not of the same faith as they are is a sinner. Others say that the members of the Judeo-Christian faiths are good, anyone else is bad. And still other groups say that everyone goes to Heaven, only the truly evil go to Hell.

Fortunately, I guess, there's no way to really tell for sure until/unless one of two things happens: A) we die, or B) all the gods make themselves verifiably known to the mob of humanity and sit down on Oprah to answer phone-in questions. The last is rather doubtful, and the first is inevitable but at that point we go where we go regardless.

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