Consider the example of a hypothetical dictator named John Doe. For 4 years, he waged a costly war against the world. And for those 4 years, he made 6 million people’s lives pure hell. So when he died, naturally he went straight to hell. But how long did he deserve to stay there? For 4 years he made 6 million people’s lives pure hell. So:
6 million * 4 years= 24 million years
But wait a minute. Isn’t hell supposedly eternal? Granted people like the hypothetical John Doe (to say nothing of all the real dictators in the world) come closer than most people to deserving eternal punishment, when you follow the “eye-for-an-eye” theory of punishment (something I, and I think most other people, presently reject). But how could anyone deserve eternal punishment when by definition eternity is always longer than any given value?
As I’ve said before on these boards, I still believe in God. But it is simple thought exercises like the one above that has made me skeptical of things like eternal punishment. Does anyone religious (or not religious) want to explain to me how to get around the above problem? And while we’re at it, would someone explain to me why an infinitely loving and merciful God would punish anyone, let alone subject them to an eternity of punishment? I am not trying to stir up a debate against religion. I really am perplexed by some of these seeming contradictions in religions .
I think that most Christians will tell you that hell and eternal punishment are not for those who have committed physical sins, but for those who have committed the ultimate spiritual sin, which is rejection of Christ. This sin against God cannot be compared to sins against other people.
In any case, mathematics has never played an important role in religion before. I don’t expect that it will any time in the future.
An infinitely loving God is not incompatible with punishment, either. Do you have children? Do you love them? Do you punish them?
The idea of an infinitely loving God eternally punishing someone, however, definitely does seem to defy the logic of punishment through “love”.
Google on “Christian Universalism”, “Annihilationism” and “Conditional Immortality” and you’ll find lots of interesting alternatives to the “eternal punishment” tradition.
Ok, I have no cites for this… yeah I suck. I picked up one of those pamphlet thingies a few weeks ago talking about hell and it said that hell is not eternal, and that it will burn out after a while. In other words people will be punished and then simply cease to exist. They pointed to several references in the bible, one of which I remember (roughly) but I do not remember where to find it:
“For the wages of sin is death, but whosoever beleiveth in me shall have eternal life” Is that close?
They pointed out that it said ‘death’, not ‘eternal death’ or ‘eternal suffering’…
The first part of that passage refers to the price that human beings pay for being essentially sinful. All men sin. All men die. There was no death in the garden of Eden before their sin, and the wages of their sin was (eventual) death.
The second part is obvious. While all men die, you may yet have eternal life through Jesus.
It all sounds like supersticious mumbo-jumbo to me, but that passage is clear enough.
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