An old friend wished me good luck in hell

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It’s been a while since I have posted here, but a recent quibble came up on social media, and I would like to vent here and hopefully get some support.

So basically I tend to have issues with over-obsession in terms of thoughts, and it can be tricky to let them come into my mind leave them alone and then let them leave. Here’s what happened:

An old friend of mine from high school in the Dominican Republic has for the past three days made rather mean remarks on my Facebook page. First having posted my admission to a philosophy PhD program, he mocked the whole subject as being stupid.

Then he made a spelling correction on a post of some lyrics I liked, which normally does not bother me, actually I like people to correct my grammar if I make a mistake, but I was getting some negative vibes from him.

As far as I can remember I have only ever been extremely nice to him, and our recent face to face encounters have been friendly enough. I remember he used to be a Bush loving conservative who would get angry the few times I claimed I was an Atheist, and would yell at me at the issue.

We then lost touch, or more that he lost touch with me, but my friends told me he had gone to some group for anger management and apparently became a different person. I can’t verify that.

Anyway, today I saw him online and I was feeling weird, and all of a sudden he wrote to me “Bro, I wish you good luck in hell. No joke.” At first instance, I did not get this comment, but then I realized he was seriously serious. I responded by saying something along the lines of Jesus would be proud of the way you treat other people and making fun of the very foundations for your belief (philosophy) is certainly not wise at all. I finished by saying that if Hell existed, any person worth any of my time would be in such a place.

I know that such a person is certifiably crazy, but it scared me for a bit, especially given that it came out of the blue. It may have to do with a post comparing Kim Davis and Chelsea Manning that stated that Chelsea Manning was being punished far more harshly than Kim Davis, but this is pure speculation, and anyway, I wish not to speak politics here.

After 5 minutes I proceeded to delete and block him, and although I’m not in the Dominican Republic at the moment, I hope not to bump into him. It was just bizarre given our history, and again, scary that people would say and believe such things.

That’s all, just wanted to share this with no further expectations.

2

I’m probably not the right one to answer this because I’d take it as a compliment. All the fun people are going to hell, who would want to spend an eternity with somebody like him? Can you imagine sharing a cloud with a bunch of his type? Now that would be hell! Even if there is a God I’d imagine He’d have to stop in hell now and again just to get away from them.

3

I know there’s a tendency on the part of some of us to look at things like that, blame ourselves and think “what did I do?”, but this isn’t about you. It’s about his anger at something.

Walk away from it, don’t spend too much time giving him space in your head.

4

You didn’t ask this, but it seems to me if you have problems with obsessive thoughts (and I do, too), you should not be on Facebook (I’m not). It presents many opportunities to obsess. JMHO.

5

Sounds like he may have obsessive thoughts about YOU. You did what I would’ve done: unfriended, blocked, etc.

Congratulations on getting into a PhD program! Good user name. :slight_smile:

6

Why didn’t you just ask him what provoked the comment instead of torturing yourself trying to puzzle it out after blocking him?

7

Thanks for the positive comments.

Rigamarole, knowing him if I did ask him such a question, I’m pretty sure I would get some religious non-sense and I do not wish to engage in talking about this topic, especially when people have such diverging opinion in which no middle ground is going to be reached, and seeing my wall, there is nothing there which should be offensive in the least, except maybe for that post about Kim Davis and Chelsea Manning, but he supposedly became a Ron Paul type libertarian.

More than puzzling as to why he said that, it’s the fact that he said that given that I’ve been quite nice to him in the past, it baffles me that he could mock the philosophic tradition and then with a straight face say I’m going to hell. I’ll probably forget about it soon enough, but it was far from necessary.

8

This is just a wild guess, but is it possible he meant that the Ph.D. program would be “hell,” and he was ironically wishing you luck?

9

No, not at all. He was serious, and if that were to be the case, he would have said it in the relevant post, not in a separate one on my wall.

10

If you are going to an “out” atheist in a culture that is largely religious and get upset that people (even frenemies) say you will “go to hell” for being a non-believer I think you need to get a thicker skin. Not all of life is a polite academic conversation, IRL people are both defensive and aggressive about their spiritual beliefs. If you intend to be an emotionally sensitive atheist you have a very tough road ahead of you.

11

I’m a Christian, but it always makes me cringe when somebody says to someone who isn’t, “You’re going to hell.” That’s just rude, quite frankly.

12

I second this. I avoid Facebook, and I had to withdraw from Twitter for the same reason.

13

This reminds me of that old SNL sketch with Jim Carrey where he played an office employee who got so used to saying “I’ll see you in hell” that he casually said it all the time to everyone.

At the end of the sketch, of course, he did.

14

If someone genuinely believes in the Christian idea of hell, then I don’t understand how such a person can ever be so sure that he or she isn’t going to end up there himself or herself. It’s not like you get a ticket with guaranteed confirmation.

15

You could of told him you’ll save a seat for him ! Try to not let it get to you .

16

I’m missing the part where this person was ever your friend. :confused:

17

I know that accepting things can be hard, but there isn’t a why that we can answer. He’s nuts* and it’s not yours to know why.

*Nuts as in not normal. Nice people don’t say that.

18

I’ve had similar happen - people believing that since I was Catholic (at the time) that I was by definition destined for hell, and that they felt bad about that/for me, because they liked me.

Your “friend” may be similar: firmly believing you’re destined for hell, and still wishing you the best - I.e.“good luck” - with maybe a substrate of hoping this may serve as some sort of last wake up call as well.

It is sometimes easy to underestimate how strongly certain religious beliefs are held, to the point of being even more that fact to the holder. No room for doubt or question.

19

If you do run into him again and he starts in with the religious glurge, just ask him to show conclusive proof of the existence of a hell. Or a heaven. Or a ghod of any kind.

The resulting facial expressions and steam whistling out of the ears are highly amusing.

20

Point. Personally I believe I don’t deserve to go to heaven on my own merits; nobody does. Only the grace of God can get you there. Or something.