Weird thoughts in a sunbeam that should have been darker.
It’s hard to think badly of a person when they’ve died. It feels illegal, in a superstitious kind of way. You can shake your head at the memories of a mean, overly-stubborn grandmother or a distant cousin who overdosed on H, but it’s usually hard to imagine them being anywhere but the big, ambiguous cloud-space known as “Heaven.” So if we can’t imagine these people in Hell without feeling like we’ve soiled our conscience, but we still believe in it as a guiding principle, then who goes there?
-Well, people like Hitler, obviously!
-But how many other people turn out like Hitler?
My point is: apart from locking somebody in a metal chamber and burning them alive, I really don’t know what the modern qualifications are for spending the rest of one’s afterlife in Hell.
Let’s assume God is an invention of Man. That’s not to say he doesn’t exist, but that he was actually invented by us and actually assumes all the responsibilities we regularly associate God with handling. From here we may assume that Heaven and Hell are also inventions of Man, designed to keep us all on the straight & narrow. This is to suppose that when we die we go to one or the other, at the very least, and deal with everything they normally entail. But do any of us really have the kind of pure blind sense of justice required to send somebody to Hell? I don’t think they are too many. St. Peter? God? Satan? How do we decide nowadays?
-Well, people like Hitler, obviously!
-But how many other people turn out like Hitler?
My point is: apart from locking somebody in a metal chamber and burning them alive, I really don’t know what the modern qualifications are for spending the rest of one’s afterlife in Hell.
Let’s assume God is an invention of Man. That’s not to say he doesn’t exist, but that he was actually invented by us and actually assumes all the responsibilities we regularly associate God with handling. From here we may assume that Heaven and Hell are also inventions of Man, designed to keep us all on the straight & narrow. This is to suppose that when we die we go to one or the other, at the very least, and deal with everything they normally entail. But do any of us really have the kind of pure blind sense of justice required to send somebody to Hell? I don’t think they are too many. St. Peter? God? Satan? How do we decide nowadays?