#885 Buddhist Hell

Dear Dr. Craig,

I am a Christian convert from Buddhism. I grew up in South Korea, where Buddhist traditions have been the backbone of the culture for over a thousand years, since the medieval Silla Kingdom. My family is also Buddhist and I once thought about becoming a Buddhist monk.

However, I found peace in the teachings of Jesus, and I converted to Christianity, wanting to be his disciple.

What has been bothering me lately, however, is a different matter altogether: the prophecies in the Sutras about those who do not believe in Buddhism.

I'm sure Dr. Craig is familiar with the peaceful Western version of Buddhism, which strips the religious aspect of Buddhism down to the bare essentials, such as Vipassana meditation. (I was appalled to hear that atheist Sam Harris practices Buddhism.) But the Buddhism practiced in South Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, and elsewhere is quite different.

In a book called Ōjōyōshū, written by the medieval Japanese monk Genshin, there are descriptions of sadistic and horrific hells (Naraka). The Abhidharmakośa-bhāsya also contains frightening descriptions of 133 Buddhist hells. These descriptions of hell are, to me, more terrifying than the Christian hell.

In one account of this hell, called Kāla-sūtra, sinners are laid down on a hot griddle, bound all over with hot iron straps, and then their bodies are sliced open by a saw while still alive. They are said to suffer this torment for about 13 trillion years.

There are many disgusting stories like this in the Buddhist hells, and the Buddhist worldview teaches that being born as a human is "harder than a blind turtle coming up out of the ocean every hundred years and sticking its head through a hollow tree," and that even if you are born as a human, if you don't practice Buddhism, you'll be reincarnated over and over again, landing in those aforementioned horrible places.

I don't believe in Buddhism anymore, but the mere listing of the horrific tortures in store for people like me in a religion I once fervently believed in is enough to make me lose my courage and hesitate.

Dr. Craig, I need your help. I wish all these stories from Buddhism were nothing more than legends made up by imaginative monks. I am also aware of the grim fate of those who have not heard the gospel in Christianity. In essence, both religions explicitly claim that there is no salvation outside of their religion, and both claim that the consequences will be very painful and deadly. I feel deep down that Christianity is right, but I still tremble with fear when I think about the pain I would face if I were wrong.

Please tell me what I can do to avoid being torn between the hells of both religions.

Seung-hun