preparing for hell the pseudo-scientific way

Just because you've been condemned to hell doesn't mean it has to be torture. All you need to do is know how to prepare for your particular damnation.

On the last episode of Skeptically Speaking, George Dvorsky and I tried to recall some web comics featuring the topic of the Technological Singularity. One of these is Dresden Codak, which also features neat snippets of humor about philosophy and science fiction. In those snippets are two recurring characters named Rupert and Hubert, a pair of Victorian pseudo-intellectuals who live on the Moon and exorcised Laplace's Demon on one fateful occasion.

This time, our duo is back to prepare us for the torments of Hell with handy advice about coping with everything from boredom, to having one's head put backwards on his body, to swimming through boiling blood, making one's trip into the realm of fire and torment much more comfortable and pleasant.

So how did this advice work out for Hubert? Check out the rest of the comic and see for yourself. And if you'd like to check and see if the Victorian pseudoscientists got their Hellish punishments correctly, why not take a look at the complete Divine Comedy online when you have a chance?

After all, our modern conception of the nature of Hell and its mythical ruler come to us via Dante Alighieri and John Milton instead of the Bible, which devotes just a few sentences to what we have interpreted as a place of eternal torment for all those thought to be wicked and sinful, rather than a punishment for all those who refuse to obey God at Judgment Day, as the last book of the Bible explicitly says. Nothing like good, fiery literature crafted by writers who wanted to make a very dramatic point to substitute for a book that is supposed to be the inerrant word of God, I suppose…