Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (The Vampire Chronicles #12)

by Anne Rice

Whence came the notion that suffering could have such value? Oh, I don’t mean the common gratitude we all feel to those who have suffered inconvenience or pain for the good of others, or the gratitude we feel for those who are willing to die to protect others from harm! But in those instances, it is the good of life which is important. I mean now the rock-bottom idea of the God Incarnate religion that holds that God Himself works through pain and suffering to “redeem” His creatures from His own wrath. And then think on the concept of eternal damnation that lies behind this God Incarnate–crucifixion religion—the idea that the Maker of the universe, the Maker of all worlds, has devised a place of eternal unspeakable conscious agony for all human beings who are not redeemed through acceptance of the horrific execution of this God Himself as His own Son in the flesh! How this God has consecrated suffering; how He has elevated unspeakable suffering as something to which He personally attaches unlimited value. He requires this Hell of eternal suffering as some sort of payment from those struggling finite humans who have disobeyed Him or failed to consecrate the suffering of God Incarnate on His fabled cross as an act of love!