I'm in hell and it is the perfect place for shadow puppets.
It's not Satan's metaphysical abyss; thank Heaven, but the physical suburb of Jerusalem that once helped primitive Christians and Muslims understand an eternity without God.
Today it's known as the Valley of Hinnom but back then it was Gehenna to the Hebrews, Jahannam to the Arabs and it held the town dump. Perpetual trash fires wafted stench and smoke over the rotting carcasses of animals and criminals, while legend to of human sacrifices to a pagan god on this spot. For Old Testament scribes, this valley was the nastiest and spookiest metaphor available. Jesus warned that it is better to go to Heaven maimed than to Gehenna whole, "where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched."
2007 years later, the worm is dead and the fire is out. Gehenna is now a grassy park with hiking trails and a rock climbing wall. And as I film an ABC News special on a dark summer night, one TV spotlight and two fingers makes an enormous shadow bunny on the valley floor. That act alone might send me to the actual lake of fire someday, but I came here to understand the origins of hell and its relevance today.
Actually every religion in human history has some version of a horrible life after death and the devils in the details say a lot about each culture. Hindus have 136 separate underworlds where bad karma is "burned off" before reincarnation. Muslims define seven flavors of fire. Demons can be bribed in the Chinese version so families burn "hell money" at funerals in bundles of 100 billion Yuan notes. And though hell has had many interior designers over the years, Dante Alighieri gave us our most vivid imagery with The Inferno. He wrote this part of his Divine Comedy while exiled from his hometown of Florence and his anger at local politicians and clergy no doubt fueled his 13th century fantasy. He created nine circles of customized torture and reserved lowest pit for traitors. How very Italian.
But while our image of the underworld comes from centuries of popular art, belief comes from so much more. I interviewed a renowned Evangelical pastor in Tulsa who could no longer reconcile a merciful God with eternal damnation. When he questioned the existence of hell, he was branded a heretic and his congregation went from 6,000 to 300. "If I say everyone goes to heaven than I can't get you to give me money to keep people out of hell," he told me with a wry smile.
I sat down with an unrepentant triple murderer who claims he has no fear for his soul. But the families of his victims desperately hope there is a hell, hot and eternal.
And I met a man convinced that he died, went to hell and returned. Science has no real explanation for the near death experience, but whatever this man saw it was enough to snap him out of a $1000 a week cocaine habit cold turkey.
After talking to all these people and studying all the theologies, one begins to see parallels. Whether your hell is hot or cold, earthly or ethereal, temporary or eternal, fear is the common denominator. Our creative minds take our fear of the unknown and concoct amazing hells in the afterlife, and destructive hells on earth.
But all the world's religions agree one essential step to avoiding it altogether: Forgiveness…asking and granting. So just to hedge my bets, I am sorry about the shadow puppets.
Bill Weir was named co-anchor of ABC News' weekend edition of Good Morning America in May 2004. He recently anchored a special report called "Hell: Our Fear and Fascination."
