Heaven and Justice

Not too long ago in the debates on Internet Infidels Forum there was a debate in regard to justice.

It seems like a ritual that religious people come to IIDB and challenge us on what we believe and usually approach us with the attitude of I'm superior because of my faith.

The core of this person's argument hinged on Hitler. Basically, he indicated that there can't be justice in the world if there isn't a hell to punish people like Hitler.

In fact, I recall reading an article about a religious person in college opening up the debate with atheists or non-religious people with asking 'where do you think Hitler is now?'

The first thought in regard to justice and hell is that in the bible it is indicated by Jesus that few people get in to heaven. Let that sink in and unless you feel you are a paragon of virtue, please put yourself in the hell column - right next to me.

The second thought is that many people go to hell for many very different reasons. Hitler is in this mythological hell because he unjustly killed millions of people. I'll go to hell because I deny the existence of god. Nearly half of the people in the USA get divorced and who knows if the big 'g' man agrees that divorce is legitimate. Who knows, maybe 54 percent of our country that are divorced people and re-married will simply be regarded as adulterers. And as previously indicated unless you are a paragon of virtue you will end up in hell. Maybe you'll end up in hell because there are witches or wiccans in your area and you allow them to live. In any case the point of my second thought is that there are no different levels of hell. Sure, in Dante's inferno, a fictional work there are levels of hell. But nothing in the bible supports this idea. So, if you are in hell because you got divorced you suffer the same level of torment as Hitler. There is no justice in this idea. There is nothing to prevent a person from realizing, "Hey, I'm going to go to hell for killing one person, why not kill as many as I can?" After all, once in hell, it can't get much worse.

My third thought is that even Hitler or Stalin doesn't deserve an eternity or infinity of torment. Place yourself in the shoes of god. You receive Hitler's soul and need to decide what to do with it. Well, you tally up all the pain he caused and you make him experience it. You take him through all the lives that will never be because he killed their ancestors or parents. Maybe you multiply the pain by a factor of 10 and you punish him for 10,000 years or more of horror. Maybe a million years. Or maybe until you can tell in his soul that he has changed in fundamental ways and more than just understand what he did was wrong, but has internalized in his thought process that he would actively figt against such a thing. Regardless of what you do to Hitler, something less than the infinite amount of time available at hand has passed and he has completed whatever, you as god, have determined as his punishment. He's done, then. That's all. Same thing with Stalin or any other genocidal idiot.

The fourth thought for now on this topic is that god ultimately is responsible for our behavior. It really doesn't matter about free will or anything like that. God, contains all the knowledge of everything (allegedly) and as such knows the outcome of all this including any fudge factor of free will religious people want to throw in there. There is the old idea of "If you could travel through time and kill Hitler, would you do it?" Well, god is all powerful. He looked at that problem and for whatever reason decided that it was a good idea that Hitler order all those people killed and that his followers were believers in him enough to go ahead and do it and not step up and say "You know, I think this isn't a good idea, I'd like to go home or go on vacation in Hawaii for a few weeks instead of kill all these people, see ya."

So, the question in the fourth thought is can god hold Hitler, Stalin, Pharaoh or Judas responsible for things in essence god is doing through them? Pharaoh didn't even have a chance. God went on in to his head and made him cold hearted so he could try out his new toy - the kill the first born of everyone without goats blood on their doors toy.

With all these thoughts I cannot see how a world with heaven and hell is any more just than a world without them. In fact, I think heaven and hell make matters far worse for justice. The real world has a lot of problems and good people don't always win (or even live) and bad people do bad things and don't always get their karmic justice. So, what? That is life.

We do what we can and we catch the bad people we can and punish them within reason. All those thousands of people who steal cars don't deserve to fry in hell infinitely. They deserve (but may not always get) to be caught, tried by a jury and placed in jail for an appropriate time. They should also apologize to the people they stole from and once they get out of jail they should pay those people back for their financial loss.

It wouldn't be perfect, but you know it isn't horrible either.