The Audacity of Certainty

We have a new leader of the Catholic community.

Let’s take a moment to marvel – not in awe, but in disbelief – at the gall of an institution that claims to know with absolute certainty what happens to your soul after death, based largely on documents compiled two millennia ago by men who thought disease was caused by demons and women were unclean once a month.

The Catholic Church asserts, with the serene confidence of a bureaucrat stamping your eternal passport, that if you don't believe in God – or more precisely, their version of God, in their approved wording, through their anointed interpreters – then you are at risk of eternal torment. Not a slap on the wrist. Not a celestial timeout. But eternity, the kind of punishment that makes North Korea look like a Butlin’s weekend.

And how do they know this? Not from evidence. Not from reasoned argument. But from revelation – a marvellous catch-all that boils down to “God told us so,” followed by centuries of men in robes arguing over what He really meant. You’d think an omnipotent being might speak a bit more clearly. Instead, we’ve had centuries of schisms, burnings, inquisitions, and councils to decide which metaphor was literal, and which literalism was metaphor.

They’ll hedge, of course. “God is merciful,” they say. “He understands ignorance.” But apparently not intellectual honesty. Apparently, the God who made us capable of doubt – and who gave us minds that question, explore, and reject bad arguments – will toss us on the pyre if we don't suspend all that and chant the creed like a celestial password.

Ah, but there’s nuance! “Invincible ignorance” might save you. The divine equivalent of “you didn’t get the memo.” But if you did hear the Gospel, and weren’t persuaded, well then – tough. Eternal conscious torment. As if truth were a game show buzzer and you chose the wrong door.

The real irony? The Church claims only God can judge a person’s heart – and then promptly builds an entire theology declaring who gets torched. That’s not humility. That’s celestial arrogance with a mitre on top.

No, the Church doesn’t know what happens to non-believers. It believes it knows – and has wrapped that belief in gold leaf and incense to make it look like certainty. But underneath the robes and ritual is a simple, ancient story: obey, believe, or burn. Dressed up for a modern world, but with all the medieval plumbing still showing.

So if there is a God – one truly worthy of the title – He’ll judge us not by the names we called Him, but by how we lived, how we loved, and whether we used the brains we were given. And if that's not good enough, then to hell with Him – though one suspects He’d understand the sentiment.