The 9 Circles of hell on earth(my view) part 3

8 Fraud

“I thought love was real but it’s nothing but an illusion.” The incorruptible has become corrupted, the faithful has lost her faith, and the true innocent has given way to the sins of man, like all before her.

 

This can begin with the sale of the sexual relationship, and on to the sale of Church and State; now, the very money is itself corrupted, every affirmation has become perjury and every identity a lie, so that every aspect of social interaction has been progressively destroyed

The fraudulent – those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil, these are the people who live by falsely representing the matter by words or conduct, this includes;

 Those who use the passions of others to drive them to do their bidding, like people who lie to others that they love them to reach a specific goal like sex.

Those who ask for payment to give blessings or who pay to receive a position in the church.an act known as simony. This is indicative of the degeneration of religion in recent times where even the church glorifies money more than God.

Corrupt politicians, Hypocrites, alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impostors these all fall under the same category according to me because they use lies and tricks to get money or power. Politicians especially are not people who gave false advice, but people who used their position to advise others to engage in fraud

In the poem, Sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets here have their heads twisted around on their bodies backward, so that they “found it necessary to walk backward, / because they could not see ahead of them.” While referring primarily to attempts to see into the future by forbidden means, this also symbolizes the twisted nature of magic in general

9 Treachery

“I will never forgive what you have done”

“You are a warrior of a weak and dying god a god who is the true evil. If you knew the true nature of God, you too would rebel”

Betrayal is very rampant in a lot of places. The traitors are distinguished from the “merely” fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying a special relationship of some kind. Judas betrayed Jesus in perhaps the most despicable act in history though it did lend an ounce of credibility to Jesus as the son of God after his resurrection.i have personally betrayed some of my friends in one way or another.

 In the poem, this is where Lucifer resides.it also has circles These rounds correspond, in order of seriousness, to betrayal of family ties, betrayal of community ties, betrayal of guests, and betrayal of liege lords. In contrast to the popular image of Hell as fiery, the traitors are frozen in a lake of ice, with each group encased in ice to progressively greater depth.

now that I’m done,what was this post about? just what i thought is wrong with the world based on a beautiful piece of literature.

à la prochaine

The 9 Circles of hell on earth(my view) part 2

3 Gluttony

“Gluttons, what they shouldn’t satisfy in life in death they shall be denied for eternity”.

This doesn’t only represent overindulgence in food but also in other elements. Gluttony is the over indulgence and over consumption of food, drink or wealth items to the point of extravagance or waste. Basically it’s wanting more and more of something you already have in adequate amounts to wasteful levels.

We all have different areas of our lives where we are gluttons in. whether its money, clothes, women, men, sex. There are so many things we have a voracious appetite for and we would over indulge to satisfy. If we all got content with what we had and not try to acquire more of it for waste, I tend to believe the world would be a much better place. Human wants are infinite but we have very finite human needs.

There is a very fine line between a want and a need and we constantly play Russian roulette with it. Human needs can be physiological (body functions) ,security, shelter, education, health care love/belonging.

In the poem, the gluttons lie sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolizing the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives. Just as lust has revealed its true nature in the winds of the previous circle, here the slush reveals the true nature of sensuality which includes overindulgence.

4 Greed

“All the earths treasure cannot give relief to these souls. What a mockery is made of the brief battle of possessions that make so short a life.”

It’s like lust and gluttony, a sin of excess. However, greed is applied to a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of material possession. This is one of the 7 deadly sins since it leads to people taking things from those who really need them to satisfy their own selfish wants. This includes governments, churches and many other religions, leading to me wondering, is it really worth it owning the world and leaving a tarnished image or as moralists would say, losing your soul?

In the poem, those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the appropriate mean are punished here. They include the avaricious or miserly (including many “clergymen, and popes and cardinals”),who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them. The contrast between these two groups leads Virgil to discourse on the nature of Fortune, who raises nations to greatness, and later plunges them into poverty, as she shifts “those empty goods from nation unto nation, clan to clan.”

5 Anger

“Do not dwell in the past details. Angry souls know no end to their fury.”

It is only human that we are sometimes prone to anger. I suppose It is how you channel that anger that really makes a difference, it is a timeless story where one does something and claims they were not thinking straight because they were angry. Never saying or acting out of anger serves well to deter bad life decisions and acts that you will probably regret.

In the poem, this reflects the fact that souls in Hell are eternally fixed in the state they have chosen, but allegorically, it reflects Dante’s beginning awareness of his own sin. An angel sent from Heaven secures entry for the poets, opening the gate by touching it with a wand, and rebukes those who opposed Dante. Allegorically, this reveals the fact that the poem is beginning to deal with sins that philosophy and humanism cannot fully understand.

6 Heresy

The damned can foresee the future but cannot see the present.

In the poem, Heretics, such as those who say “the soul dies with the body” are trapped in flaming tombs. In response to a question from Dante about the “prophecy” he has received, Farinata explains that what the souls in Hell know of life on earth comes from seeing the future, not from any observation of the present. Consequently, when “the portal of the future has been shut, “it will no longer be possible for them to know anything.

7  Violence

“The pain you endure purifies you, forever bound, like a shadow of time, unforgotten.”

There is a common saying that, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… well except polio. It is true that adversity only serves to make us stronger so whatever you go through serves to strengthen your resolve.

Violence as a concept is well known throughout history. Many of the civilizations were brought about by conquests and the same brought many civilizations down……except the Mayans who were probably kidnapped by aliens. However, all through history there have been a lot of people claiming that they were waging war for God; these are those who commit sin in the name of God. God doesn’t condone any violence. Recently the Al Qaeda and the Al Shabaab have been wreaking havoc on the world in the name of waging holy war against the unbelievers,this is wrong since even the Quran doesn’t condone violence.

In the poem,This ring houses the violent against people and property, the violent against God and the suicides.  Dante learns that suicides, unique among the dead, will not be corporally resurrected after the final judgment since they gave away their bodies through suicide; instead they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the thorny limbs. The other residents of this ring are the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying money and property. They are perpetually chased and mauled by ferocious dogs. The destruction wrought upon the wood by the profligates’ flight and punishment as they crash through the undergrowth causes further suffering to the suicides, who cannot move out of the way

Final part coming next

 

The 9 Circles of hell on earth(my view)

This post is based on my personal interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s poem the divine comedy more commonly known as Dante’s inferno. This is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin

Lately in the world there are more damned than the blessed according to me, Charon boat has grown to encompass the increase of the damned souls (Charon  is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead). There is not only suffering in hell but also pleasures that our human selves cannot fathom, otherwise how do you explain the hedonistic way of life we all so earnestly pursue? Whether we admit it or not, we all want a luxury filled life, we want to enjoy the best things that life has to offer and for that we are willing to do a lot. Atheists argue that if there is a God why does he let all the bad things in the world happen? Well, in my view He has also given us free will so what we do is up to us…but that’s neither here nor there.

Before entering Hell completely, Dante and his guide see the Uncommitted, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil. These souls are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores, their punishment to eternally pursue Self-interest. A lot of people do this, they do not think of themselves as good or bad, but they do nothing to change the status quo, is life worth living if you do not do anything that makes life better for someone else other that yourself?

Personally, I do a lot of things that do not help others but try to assuage my conscience by saying that I do not have a lot of resources to make someone else’s life better. In the immortal words of Jay Z, ‘I cannot help the poor if I’m one of them so I’ll get rich and give back that’s a win win’

So here is my personal view of the nine concentric circles reflecting hell.

1 Limbo

Here reside those who have nothing to show for what they believe, you lack hope for something greater than the rational mind can come up with. You do not know what to do with your life and you are content with mediocrity, you do not have a life plan and you sway wherever the winds take you.

These people are what’s wrong with society, if it were up to me, id encourage you to wake up and in whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability.

Recently a friend of mine said some very inspirational words that I am going to shamelessly plagiarize “I chose to be celibate yesterday. I decided to stay without allowing any form of mediocrity in my life. I decided not to give failure a chance in my life. I decided not to look at my circumstances but to be thankful. I decided that should I meet that man again I shall be worthy of his attention. I decided to be a canvas and let He who has a plan for me be the artist.” That can be found on his blog post here.

This quote captures this perfectly

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven adn earth will pause to say, here a great street sweeper who did his job well lived.”

In the poem those who reside here are the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. It includes poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan; the Amazon queen Penthesilea; the mathematician Euclid; the scientist Pedanius, Dioscorides; the statesman Cicero; the first doctor Hippocrates; the philosophers Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Averroes; the historical figures Lucretia, Lucius , Junius Brutus, and Julius Caesar

 All of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin are judged to one of the lower eight circles by the serpentine Minos

2 Lust

The devil introduced sin but man cultivated it and spread it like a disease. Man is good, but the earth is another form of hell and man its demons. This is because all the atrocities in the world are committed by men. However there is no rest for the wicked because. You cannot hide from memory or sin.

Who among us hasn’t been tempted and more often than not succumbed to the great need for carnal pleasure. I am no saint to this either I have fallen victim to this but I’ve tried to resist and promised to hold out and control my inner desires (this is me saying I’m very celibate for the foreseeable future.) this is because I can attribute the failure of all my relationships to sex as can many other people…this will be explained more in the next post.

Unfortunately this is one area where even the purest of souls can be corrupted .This is one of the greatest sins admonished even in the bible. 1 Corinthians 6; 12-20.The gist of it is that, flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body but he who sins sexually sins against himself.

The Qur’an claims that Allah rewards those who restrain themselves from carrying out their lusts:

But as for him who feared standing before his Lord, and restrained himself from impure evil desires, and lusts. Verily, Paradise will be his abode. S. 79:40-41 Hilali-Khan

The Muslim scripture further attests that Allah does not command indecency:

And when they commit a Fahisha (evil deed, going round the Ka’bah in naked state, every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse, etc.), they say: “We found our fathers doing it, and Allah has commanded us of it.” Say: “Nay, Allah never commands of Fahisha. Do you say of Allah what you know not? S. 7:28 Hilali-Khan

In the poem, These souls are blown back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly

The English poet John Keats, in his sonnet “On a Dream,” imagines what Dante does not give us, the point of view of one of the souls here:

… But to that second circle of sad hell,
Where ‘mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

Part 2 coming up next