For many forms of Christianity, the surrendering process you could say is voluntary -- but you have a great choice: you want to go to heaven or you want to be burnt alive for trillions of years. Let me think about that. First of all the idea we burn in hell is actually an evil theory because what if you read in the newspaper that some guy in Los Angeles had twenty kids and he gave all his kids lot of things to do and a few of his kids were disobedient and did not do exactly what the father wanted them to. The father poured lighter fluid on them and ignited them and he did it in such a way so they would burn as long as possible. He tried, he did not want them to die very soon and burnt them alive. I mean that person would be considered the most evil monster.

I often challenge audiences when speaking to come up with something, an act more evil than torturing your own children forever. And therefore if some of these Christian views were correct, the only rational conclusion would be that God would be most evil monster ever conceived by human beings.

In Bhagavad-gita we find that it's not like thisfanatical thing where if you do not surrender, if you do not accept Christ in your heart you are going to be fried for a very long time. In Bhagavad-gita, when Krsna describes the mode of goodness it does not even include Him, in other words Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita you can be happy and actually be elevated, go to higher planets and never even accept Him. Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita, "sattvat sanjayate sukham" (sic), from goodness comes happiness. Krsna says, "urdhvam gacchanti sattva-sthah", those situated in sattva guna, urdhvam gacchanti, they go upward. So you can be elevated, materially happy, live with the angels and all that and not accept Krsna. He is not the jealous God they [indistinct] it. This is a cosmopolitan, liberal deity. Krsna is not a religious fanatic. God is not a religious fanatic.

It is interesting how you do have these religious fanatics in the world who think that God is one of them. So I mean think of it. In the middle of Oxford, England, the famous college town, in the middle of this old historic centre there is a monument, two-three Oxford professors of theology were burnt alive at the stake by the queen of England because the professors had got their positions when there was a Protestant monarch. And there was a change and a Catholic queen came to power and she did not want any Protestant theology taught, and they could not give it up, because, I mean they were in a sense not as violent as she was but philosophically they [indistinct] were foolish. They believed they would go to hell forever if they taught Catholic doctrine and the queen thought the students of these professors would go to hell forever if they believed what the professors were teaching. It is obviously very intuitive people, so the queen the burned them alive at the stake. I mean after all if God is going to burn the unrepentant, people will join the wrong church. If God is going to burn them forever and I just burn them for a half-hour, I mean God as in heaven and so on earth. I am walking in the path of the Lord by burning people alive. So despite all these piety and despite all of its excellent music and architecture, the point is that there was something despite all the good things there is something actually evil. There is something evil in such religions. There is something evil in it actually. I mean to burn people alive is evil especially because they don't, they have studied different views on certain philosophical matters. To burn them alive is evil. To think that God would torture in the most hideous way, his own children, forever, because in the relatively tiny window of opportunity they were given to join the right church, they did not make that occur and there was no question of second chances, no second chance, you are just going to be put in the divine skillet. And you are going to be fried forever and God's intension is not to save you or to rectify you because there is not a second chance.

It's not even some brutal, incredibly tough love, to get you to the right point. No! God has absolutely no further interest in ever saving you again. He only wants you to suffer forever. That is evil. That idea is actually evil and frankly, a lot of the anti-religious sentiments, a lot of them, I mean the fact that a large number of educated people in this country have a somewhat negative view of organized religion, obviously has to be traced to this evil, this monstrous perversion of religion. And in the Old Testament there are certain passages where certain people who thought they were prophets informed the people that God is speaking through them, that now God wants genocide to be carried out. I recall the worshippers of Baal, who was like some kind of demigod or local nature god in Palestine and so anyone who worships their god, the men, children, and women and all have to be murdered and God would be very displeased if any women or children were spared; in other words genocide. So now this tradition for all of its good points and there are good points, but this tradition in which God ordered genocide, where God tortures his own children forever if they make one mistake, this monstrous evil comes from a certain part of the world which is the Middle East.