That night, I beheld visions of heaven and hell. Never before had I entered such a place. A friend had invited me to join his family and I agreed, unaware of what lie ahead. Once inside, I found that the building resembled an amphitheater more than a traditional church. The majority of the seats were filled when we arrived, so we sat in the highest seats near the back of the enormous room. Shortly afterward, a large spotlight centered upon the stage became our only source of light as the church’s production of the afterlife began. Each part was well acted and produced; I have seen few productions better than that one. The first act portrayed a kind, loving family that tended to the sick before they suffered a car accident and found themselves in heaven. In the second, a generous, elderly man perished in his sleep and was elated to find his youth restored in heaven. These displays made me smile, but my pleasure turned to horror as the following acts depicted people condemned to hell after sinning. After several acts, I was sobbing and could stand no more.

I have never fully understood what made me cry that night. Perhaps the agonies that sinners would be forced to suffer made me pity them greatly. Perhaps the expressions on all of the faces around me that seemed to say, “They deserved that,” made me wonder if all, seemingly good people were callous at the core. My friend’s family mercifully decided to leave at that point.

I don’t know why I retain such a vivid memory of that night. I did not embrace Christian ideology, as some people might have after such an experience. I acted more religiously afterward, saying prayers nightly and behaving even better than usual. However, several thoughts occurred to me weeks later: If God created humanity, then God is our parent. How could any parent willingly cast his children into a pit of eternal suffering? If God is omniscient, he must know that eternal torture serves no constructive purpose. To a lesser extent, the paradoxical question of, “If God can do anything, can he make a pizza so big that even he can’t eat it?” may have also influenced my reasoning. I still tried to be a good person, but I began to believe that what I had been told that night in the church wasn’t necessarily true.

Maybe the reason that night seems so important to me is because after I doubted religious doctrine, I had to redefine my beliefs based upon what I actually thought, allowing my beliefs to change and grow with me. Overall, my religious views now seem more-or-less in line with Unitarian teachings, principally the universal acceptance of others’ beliefs. I have met many people who stubbornly refuse to accept others’ differences, and who insist that everything they know is right, so my beliefs are, upon reflection, less common than I had thought when I began this essay.