Hell Awareness Week.

In the week before Halloween my University had a special awareness week.
You expect to find the Alcohol, Drug, and Crosswalk Safety Awareness Weeks.
I'll be honest, I seriously didn't see Hell Awareness Week coming. 

The nice gentleman behind the booth declined my offer to be in the picture. He did however give me his presentation. Apparently during the week before Halloween, when students are ignorantly celebrating witchcraft, demonism, and general evil, they wanted to remind campus of what we should REALLY be afraid of: Hell. I smiled and nodded along and had an inner debate between running away and being polite and listening to his point since I was amused enough to take a picture of their booth. And then he asked if I wanted to win a goodie basket (See those cute pumpkin buckets filled with goodies? Who doesn't want to win a goodie basket, ESPECIALLY one in honor of Hell Awareness Week, surely that Hell Bucket contains some Magical Heaven Candy right?). Maybe it was a trick, playing on my greed, gluttony, lust, or likely all three but it worked. All I had to do was answer two little questions, and I could be entered in a drawing to win a Hell Bucket. I didn't even have to believe in Hell to be eligible (I asked)! 

Question 1: If you died right now, do you think you would go to Heaven or Hell?

Answer 1: Well, as we discussed, I don't believe in Hell per say, so, um... is this question even answerable? I suppose if I have to choose one then I would prefer the first... but only if my friends can come too. 

Response 1: Well, Hell does exist, it's in the Bible, and that's why we're set up here is to educate people about how to live their lives.

Response to Response 1: That's nice of you, I'm afraid I just have a different set of beliefs and a less-than-literal interpretation of the Bible, can we go to the second question now?

Question 2: What do you think is required to avoid going to Hell?

Answer 2: Well, again, as we discusses, I don't believe in Hell, so I'm not sure how to answer this question. By not believing in it?

Response 2: Hell is real, and there are actions you can take to avoid ending up there. 

Response to Response 2: I appreciate your concern, however I don't personally believe that a loving God would sentence people to eternal suffering. I also don't believe that you have to have a "Big Brother is watching" sentiment in order to be a good person. However, I fully respect your right to believe whatever you like, and I so appreciate you respecting mine as well. Do I got to sign up for the Hell Bucket now? 

He gave me the sheet to write down my name and phone number, and asked if I would like calls to remind me of their weekly bible study meetings (you don't have to be Christian to attend! He assured me). I declined the reminder, although I will totally accept a phone call to let me know I won a Hell Bucket! He laughed, reminded me again he would be happy to chat about my "beliefs", which he had clearly decided were neo-paganistic in nature, and we parted ways. 

Not two hours later I received a phone call to tell me that I'd won a "goodie basket". It took me about 3 seconds to translate that to "Hell Bucket" and get really excited. 

Okay, so the food was a bit shit. No Heaven candy in sight. However I learned two things from this experience. 

1. God obviously prefers my beliefs about Hell, and hence decided to help me win the drawing (okay, so  it's just as likely that my competition was rather lacking as most people probably didn't want to talk to the Hell Awareness people, but I like the first version of events)

2.  Corn Nuts: Hot Sauce and Limon Chips (Which I didn't even know existed) are kind of AMAZING!