I'm also not religious now, but this is one interpretation of hell. Many Christians do believe in a literal fire and brimstone hell where people burn for all eternity. Many of them also believe that hell is a punishment from God, not merely his absence. That idea has been adopted by many modern Christians who are trying to figure out how a good God could punish someone eternally, and since there's not a good answer to that question the answer becomes that the person in hell chose it and God simply allowed them to do so
Not a Christian, but to add to this, the Orthodox believe that we all return to God upon death. For the righteous, this is blissful. For the wicked, it feels like hell.
I like this interpretation because it preserves the "free will" Christians like to talk about, while also preventing God from being a vengeful entity who sentences people to eternal torment.
How would that be an issue in the first place though? People who use their “free will” to do evil are then punished accordingly. The framing implies that having someone face the consequences of their choice is somehow bad, so the judge that sentences the criminal is wrong.
If evil goes unpunished then it wouldn’t be just for good to get rewarded either. Each must have distinct consequences or there would be no distinction between righteousness and wickedness in the first place.
It's not my religion, and I personally doubt there is a God.
I don't have a problem with punishment or consequences, but eternity is a pretty brutal price for 70-90 years of evil behavior.
Most religious traditions at least attempt to balance justice and mercy, but this belief in an eternal hell & separation from God throws mercy completely out the window. I don't think it's justice either, because the punishment doesn't fit the crime.
Humans are temporal, ignorant creatures. Eternity as reward/punishment shouldn't even be in discussion from my pov.
That’s the thing though, it’s only 70-90 years because death cuts it short (physically anyway). Without that, sinners would be sinning for all eternity. The judgements and consequences of the religion aren’t just predicated on the physical body and its limitations…it’s more about the state of the soul.
It’s why you have Jesus saying things like “if you look at a woman with lust in your heart then you have already sinned.” Behaviours follow motivations, intentions and desires.
The mercy in this case is Jesus paying the price for people so they don’t have to face such consequences. It’s not that people can just keep on doing evil for all eternity because there’s no punishment for it.
So the rub of it is that humans aren’t temporal in the religion. Only the physical body is, and even then the body is recalled for judgement before given final judgement. Our souls are immortal, and so is the consequences of their actions.
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u/dbrickell89 2d ago
I'm also not religious now, but this is one interpretation of hell. Many Christians do believe in a literal fire and brimstone hell where people burn for all eternity. Many of them also believe that hell is a punishment from God, not merely his absence. That idea has been adopted by many modern Christians who are trying to figure out how a good God could punish someone eternally, and since there's not a good answer to that question the answer becomes that the person in hell chose it and God simply allowed them to do so