Is hell fair punishment?

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No, hell is not fair whether it’s a choice or not. Whether it’s fire and brimstone or not (i.e. just the absence of God.) Any form of suffering forever is not fair.
(Not to mention there are many people who don’t believe in God and can’t help it…just like I can’t help but not believe in Zeus.)

A being of unlimited power should be able to come up with something better.
Example: Supernatural selection. For every about-to-be-conceived human organism, God could look into the future and see where this organism will go when it dies (assuming it does get created). For those organisms that would go to hell, God could simply stop the conception from occurring.
This sounds sort of like contraception, but the reason why contraception is viewed as evil by the Church is because it’s against God’s will. If GOD does it, it’s not against His own will.
This does not eliminate free will. (The about-to-be-beings in question are not having their free will removed because God would be stopping their existence before it began.)
This would make the world filled with people that, of their own free will, won’t go to hell.

It’s logic like this that makes me heavily gravitate towards universal reconciliation. With universal reconciliation, you already have the situation described above!

Purgatory (as a place where you learn from your sins with God’s help; not as a place of punishment) still makes a lot of sense to me. (This is how heaven can become a fair reward.)

EDIT: Of course, I’m just one person trying to make sense of things. I’ll not pretend I know for sure what’s going to happen.
 
Blade_and_Blood said:
It seems as if we are punished *by *our sins and not necessarily for them. When you do something wrong, there is always a consequence, whether it’d be physical or mental.

I must say, however, the mental consequences are the ones that really get to you and stay with you until you fix your mistake and learn from your fault
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This is a good explanation of the Buddhist concept of karma.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
I was talking to a friend the other night who raised an interesting question for which I could not give him a satisfactory answer. He asked whether an evil act committed in time deserved *eternal *damnation in hell. That is, does the punishment seem to fit the crime?

What say you all?
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Yes, because we are given ever chance ever offered to make things right. If we can’t follow the rules, we accept the consequence.
 
redhen said:
This is a good explanation of the Buddhist concept of karma.
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Huh… I didn’t catch that. But, I’m not surprised at my response; I’ve been studying so many religions, lately, it’s insane and intriguing at the same time!

However, I stand by my comments.

Ironically Yours. ❤️
 
Blade_and_Blood said:
Huh… I didn’t catch that. But, I’m not surprised at my response; I’ve been studying so many religions, lately, it’s insane and intriguing at the same time!
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Originally Posted by Blade and Blood View Post
It seems as if we are punished by our sins and not necessarily for them. When you do something wrong, there is always a consequence, whether it’d be physical or mental.
Click to expand...
I must say, however, the mental consequences are the ones that really get to you and stay with you until you fix your mistake and learn from your fault
Click to expand...
Karma is a subset of *dependent origination *. Basically, there is no cosmic dispenser of justice, all our actions (including thoughts) have consequences, both good and bad.

Similar thoughts in the Bible, e.g. reaping what you sow. The similarities end there though. Buddhist karma also include past actions from previous lives. 🤷
 
redhen said:
Karma is a subset of *dependent origination *. Basically, there is no cosmic dispenser of justice, all our actions (including thoughts) have consequences, both good and bad.

Similar thoughts in the Bible, e.g. reaping what you sow. The similarities end there though. Buddhist karma also include past actions from previous lives. 🤷
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Yes, but I don’t believe in previous lives. I’m talking about “action-reaction.”

Ironically Yours. ❤️
 
Blade_and_Blood said:
It seems as if we are punished *by *our sins and not necessarily for them. When you do something wrong, there is always a consequence, whether it’d be physical or mental.
Click to expand...
Hey, that is a pretty good explanation coming from someone who may or may not believe in Hell! 😃

Hell is a consequence of not being in a state of grace. I think an apologist on this site compared it to a fish not being able to live without water; we can’t live without grace.
 
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