Hell, quick and simple

I had a conversation with a friend last night about hell. It was partly stimulated by my recent postings, and partly by a discussion on another blog with some of the usual confusions about why God would sent people to hell if they showed remorse… and of course, who would not show remorse being shown the way of ones sins and the unbearable eternal torture of hell? Well, here’s why.

I invited my friend to imagine God taking several of the typical residents of hell and putting them back into their "previous to death" lives, back on earth. It did not take him too long to see what I mean. Let’s imagine these typical residents of hell coming back: a tyrannical dictator, a child molester, a drug dealer, and a swindler. Does anyone seriously believe that any of those four would not fall back into their evil deeds upon being given a second chance, even with the pains of hell fresh on their minds? The dictator would only have his ego fed, figuring he’d outlasted God, so he truly must have a special destiny. The child molester would feel like he was back in his own heaven, making a child’s innocent life hell for his gratification. The drug dealer would use the excuse of his terrible trauma to use and peddle his drugs even harder… though he might figure if he donated a portion of his drug proceeds to charity that he can “avoid” hell next time. He will have not learned the lesson that it’s the ruining of other people’s lives through addiction enabling that put him in hell. And the swindler, whether Enron scale or having ruined just one person’s life, she’d be right back at it, figuring that this time she’d only swindle people who “deserved” to be swindled, so she could have her cake and eat it too. My friend, knowing real life examples of all of these people, quickly saw what I meant. The nature of being human and rife with the tendency to sin gives people an almost eternal incorrigibility. As soon as they are back in their bodies they cannot resist temptation and evil. They would just use their experience in hell as a way to rationalize or think they are twiddling the system. This, sadly, is the real legacy of Adam and Eve.

Now you might ask what if a person who was taken out of hell and given a second chance did change and was exemplary in their restored life. Those people never go to hell in the first place, because God can see the true deathbed confession and conversion. The recognition of their sins and how it had hurt others is purgatory. What remains after purgatory is what achieves heaven. God has, sadly, a lot of experience in knowing who is sincere in their remorse, even if they waited until the last moment, and who would revert immediately upon being given a “second chance.” The sad news is that many “ordinary” sinners actually fall into that category of being incorrigible. As soon as they had their original lives back, they would sin again… and worse, because they figure they had “worked the angles” with God. Many abortionists would go right back to it, and tell themselves they were “saving” unborn children from the risk of hell. Pornographic and depressive script writers would go right back to writing their garbage, because their pride demands that they "use their experience" in their "art work." Anti-Church worshippers of "golden calves" would come back and just switch idols, figuring in their pride they knew the "real" story of what a chump God is. I constantly marvel (and not in a good and admiring way) how stubborn mundane, “ordinary,” day to day evil is….whether it’s Pol Pot or the woman who cheated an elderly neighbor out of her retirement savings. They go to hell and stay in hell, trust me.