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Its a spiritual problem. This is what the country wants. It has rejected God.

I agree with you. But I was thinking a lot about this yesterday. I feel like maybe things are so much worse because the country has rejected hell.

I mean, when I was a kid, my mom taught me the ten commandments. When she got to "Thou shalt not kill", she said that that is one that you'd go straight to hell for. Then leading into a discussion of what hell was like. We talked about mortal sin and asking for God's forgiveness so we don't spend eternity in hell. It was simplistic talk for a little kid, but effective.

All of my friends knew about hell. We weren't perfect and got into trouble, but we all knew about hell. We all feared it in our own way. I remember watching the movie "Ghost" as a teen and seeing the demons come for the bad guys. A great scene that gave me nightmares.

Culture today either ignores hell all together or reduces it to a simple "state of mind" argument. It is rarer to find people that think of it as a real place. I find myself questioning it often, my imperfect faith goes through ebbs and flows. But I've got that little bitty piece that is ingrained in my conscience that never completely rules out the prospect of an eternity in hell.

It is my little theory that kids are growing up now with absolutely no fear of hell. Even those that might begin their lives being faithful to God, slip up down the road without the fear of hell to push them back in the right direction.

Hypothetically, if I were a scientist and could scientifically prove the basic existence of either God or hell, I wonder which I would choose.

It is rarer to find people that think of it as a real place.

A lot will say that. OTOH, these are the same people who will say, "H-E-Double hockey sticks." Why are they afraid to say "hell"? Deep down, they must believe it's real.

My favorite way to inject religion into everyday life is to simply use hell's name in vain. "What the hell?" "Who the hell did that?" Using "hell" in conversation is still socially acceptable. If the "fear of God" is the beginning of wisdom, then the fear of hell is the beginning of the beginning of wisdom.

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In a similar vein, E. Michael Jones wrote a book about modern horror movies. His thesis is that the slasher movie phenomenon is about our repressed knowledge that sexual license is wrong. The victims of the monster are almost always young teenagers engaging in pre-marital sex.

How's this for a Grand Unified Theory of horror: All horror monsters (including aliens, vampires, plagues, and slashers) are the personification of the guilty conscience that punishes unrepentant sinners (especially those who've transgressed God's sexual code). The Monster is Remorse, which author E. Michael Jones defines as regret without repentance.
Jones's interpretive theory of horror is easy enough to apply, especially to what's been called the "have sex and die" cycle of films. Consider Halloween: P.J. Soles engages in premarital sex. She knows that she has violated the moral order, but she suppresses her guilty conscience, thus eschewing repentance. But the guilty conscience never relents, and returns in the personification of Myers. Myers is also Nemesis (another of Jones's metaphors), the Greek goddess of "retributive justice" who restores God's/Nature's moral order to balance. Appropriately, Jamie Lee Curtis, a "good girl," escapes Myers.

Ahhh! Somebody cut through the fat to get to the real meat of the problem.

Jesus specifically talks about a “rich man” who was in hell here:

Luke 16:19-31

And if you really want a terrifying picture of hell, you should read this post:

https://www.raptureready.com/featured/graham/g146.html

Hell motivated me to become a follower of Christ. I know I’m not the only one to be motivated by that fear.

“if I were a scientist and could scientifically prove the basic existence of either God or hell”

This may interest you. There is a class of mathematical proofs for the existence of God called ontological argument for the existence of God.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument

My favorite is the one done by Kurt Godel. He is most famous for his Incompleteness Theorem. He was also a friend of Einsteins. Walked him everyday to Princeton, and Godel even did some work on Einsteins relativity theorems.