Interesting non-Buddhist quote from an old novel

vinlyn

I'm reading a 1940s novel that was a Pulitzer Prize winner and was later made into a movie starring Bette Davis and Olivia deHavilland -- "In This Our Life". I ran across an interesting quote in it today:

""Were people always as flighty as they are now?" she asked. "Or is it only that nothing is private any longer?"

"Perhaps they had other excitements. Religion, for example, and whether they would be saved or damned in eternity."

...

"My father used to say that when the world got rid of hell, it would regret it only once, and that would be always."

"I wonder. Wouldn't a belief in humanity serve the same purpose?"

"Not on your life!"

Jeffrey

I don't really understand this. Why would we be flighty because nothing is private? Does flighty mean an 'airhead'? Was that father saying that if religion got rid of hell there would be endless regret? And the protagonist asked if belief in humanity could provide an excitement. I am not sure if I am smart enough to understand, ha.

vinlyn

Yes, I think the key sentence in the exchange was, ""My father used to say that when the world got rid of hell, it would regret it only once, and that would be always."