By Peacefully Hiding ~
Mankind can be a very cruel animal. When we think of cruelty it's easy to distance ourselves from that reality because most of us are not actually subjected to cruelty. For instance, who here has served time in an interrogation room being water-boarded? Who has seen their family massacred as part of a political statement? Who among us has had the women in our family raped in front of our eyes for a burglar's personal amusement? These things, these atrocities against one another, are typically headline news that are soon forgotten.
A particular case of this comes to mind. The burglary, assault and murder of the Petit family. To skip to the details, the mother cooperated giving the robbers $15,000 from her savings to their assurances they would leave the family unharmed. Soon after one of the criminals raped her in her living room and strangled her with her fine silk scarf until her face turned purple and eyes literally bulged from her skull. This was after molesting her 11 year old daughter and taking cell phone pictures of it. After murdering the mother the two criminals poured gasoline over the mother's two daughters faces and bodies, one 17, the other 11, and lit them on fire. The two burned alive.
These two criminals are on death row and will be for awhile appealing their conviction, though they were caught immediately after they set the house and family on fire and confessed to the slaughter.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal.What, then, should we do to these two criminals? If you read the full report online you'd be tempted to give them the worst punishment you could imagine, for they deserve no less and no mercy. One member of the jury didn't believe they deserved the death penalty. They even have supporters. Yes, men who rape 11 year old girls and set them on fire have supporters.
Again we return to the question of 'what do we do to these two when death isn't enough?'
Many who oppose the death sentence immediately opt for them being put in jail for the rest of their lives and given 'prison justice'.
We can imagine the details of prison justice but what we fail to recognize is the lack of responsibility on our part to punish these people. Rather than punish we put them in the hands of human 'devils' so to speak, who do their bidding for the eternal remainder of their life on Earth.
Does this sound anything like the bible's description of hell? A place where WE have no bloodshed on our hands. We hand that over to God and his 'hell' device.
Hell, to me, seems like a mirror of prison justice. We need not feel any guilt because 'we' aren't responsible for what goes on inside- right? It's all God's decision.
Just as I feel allowing prisoners to rape and kill one another is fundamentally wrong I feel that the idea of hell is wrong. It is an extension of human thought, clear and simple, and we know human thoughts are not divine, no matter how inspired they may be. If God existed as he is written to be in the bible there would be no hell for there would be no allowing criminals to allow themselves choices which lead to hell. Why allow the birth of a murderer? To send them to hell?
It's more fair to say we do not understand what happens to us when our lives end on this Earth. There may be a god who may punish but the bible does a very poor job in describing such a phenomenon in a divine manner devoid of human interference.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal. When we think of cruelty it's easy to distance ourselves from that reality because most of us are not actually subjected to cruelty. For instance, who here has served time in an interrogation room being water-boarded? Who has seen their family massacred as part of a political statement? Who among us has had the women in our family raped in front of our eyes for a burglar's personal amusement? These things, these atrocities against one another, are typically headline news that are soon forgotten.
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| Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1850) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
These two criminals are on death row and will be for awhile appealing their conviction, though they were caught immediately after they set the house and family on fire and confessed to the slaughter.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal.What, then, should we do to these two criminals? If you read the full report online you'd be tempted to give them the worst punishment you could imagine, for they deserve no less and no mercy. One member of the jury didn't believe they deserved the death penalty. They even have supporters. Yes, men who rape 11 year old girls and set them on fire have supporters.
Again we return to the question of 'what do we do to these two when death isn't enough?'
Many who oppose the death sentence immediately opt for them being put in jail for the rest of their lives and given 'prison justice'.
We can imagine the details of prison justice but what we fail to recognize is the lack of responsibility on our part to punish these people. Rather than punish we put them in the hands of human 'devils' so to speak, who do their bidding for the eternal remainder of their life on Earth.
Does this sound anything like the bible's description of hell? A place where WE have no bloodshed on our hands. We hand that over to God and his 'hell' device.
Hell, to me, seems like a mirror of prison justice. We need not feel any guilt because 'we' aren't responsible for what goes on inside- right? It's all God's decision.
Just as I feel allowing prisoners to rape and kill one another is fundamentally wrong I feel that the idea of hell is wrong. It is an extension of human thought, clear and simple, and we know human thoughts are not divine, no matter how inspired they may be. If God existed as he is written to be in the bible there would be no hell for there would be no allowing criminals to allow themselves choices which lead to hell. Why allow the birth of a murderer? To send them to hell?
It's more fair to say we do not understand what happens to us when our lives end on this Earth. There may be a god who may punish but the bible does a very poor job in describing such a phenomenon in a divine manner devoid of human interference.
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