Comedian and actress Sarah Silverman recently contended that there is no Hell as she attempted to alleviate people of their fears of possibly going there.
Silverman's remarks were featured in a clip of her show The Sarah Silverman Podcast that was posted on Twitter last Friday.
“If you’re in the range of my voice right now and you’re someone who believes and fears Hell, let me release you of that fear right now,” Silverman began as she contended, “there is no hell I promise you.”
“I mean it, what do I know?”, she continued,” but I believe it with my whole heart.”
There is no hell#sarahSilvermanPodcast pic.twitter.com/rPCz38RA8w
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) January 8, 2021
Silverman went on to recount a story that took place between her and some young Catholic students in New York before the pandemic. As the kids were coming out of school, she blurted out, “there’s no hell!”
“And one boy looked back, he goes, ‘what?’” she noted. “I go, ‘I’m an adult and I’m telling you, I promise you, there is no Hell.”
Alongside Silverman was a friend who told her, “you can’t tell other people’s kids there isn’t Hell.”
In response, the comedian asked, “what am I? Ruining Hell for them?”
She proceeded to encourage her listeners to be released of their fears concerning Hell’s existence.
“And I promise you’re not going to be a crueler person because you don’t believe in Hell,” she asserted. “It feels good to be good. It feels good to be kind.”
Silverman added, “You’re still going to make the same mistakes either way.”
In verifying her claim, Silverman then called on God to immediately strike her dead if Hell exists.
“If there’s Hell, may God strike me dead right, right now,” she continued as she paused and looked upward.
After several seconds, Silverman happily looked back at the camera saying, “See? No God.”
Her clip sparked a debate in the comments as people argued over Hell’s existence.
One user explained that despite leaving religion, she could not let go of the possibility of hell due to her fear of death.
“Can you help me w/ this? I think most of my raging anxiety & life problems might be tied to this,” Toni Snark wrote. “I know you’re busy & famous, but I’ve struggled with this for decades.”
Another user argued, “Hell doesn't make any sense. What crime could you commit that would justify an infinite time of the most cruel torture? Do people have any concept of how big infinity is? Thank you, Sarah.”
“If heaven and hell do exist, I have a hard time understanding what the criteria is for going to heaven,” user Garrett Colucci remarked. “The Bible says that everyone who believes in Jesus goes to heaven. So bad people who believe in Jesus go to heaven and good people who don’t go to hell? Doesn’t add up to me.”
Darrell B. Harrison, a Christian who co-hosts the Just Thinking Podcast, expressed concern over professing believers who “are living under the same faulty proposition as Silverman” in believing that one can avoid hell by being a good person after they die.
Notwithstanding her views on hell, what, to me, is concerning about this is that many people who profess to be Christian are living under the same faulty proposition as Silverman in that they believe being a good person (moralism) is how one avoids going to hell after they die. https://t.co/MlZCT2oQtf
— Darrell B. Harrison (@D_B_Harrison) January 10, 2021
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Brad Barket/Stringer
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
