Posted on 11/29/2004 10:32:50 PM PST by kattracks
The death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat raises an interesting and significant question: Is it morally and theologically acceptable to hope anyone goes to hell?That was my first reaction to the death of the godfather of modern terrorism. But I recognize that many people, including many who share my moral assessment of Arafat, might reject such a reaction, let alone publicly express it. But there is a good case to be made for hoping that Yasser Arafat now finds himself in hell.
In order to do so, three issues need to be addressed:
First, is there a hell? Can rational people believe in such a thing?
Second, if there is a hell, does Arafat merit going there? And can any of us mortals judge a person worthy of hell?
Third, if there is a hell, is it acceptable to hope someone who we believe merits it goes there?
First, is there a hell?
Among those who pride themselves in being what is deemed sophisticated in our time, the notion of hell is either absurd, immoral or both. It is also identified with Christians, especially conservative Christians, and, therefore, the sophisticated feel particularly compelled to reject the concept.
Yet the belief that those who commit evil are punished after death is hardly restricted to Christianity. One of the Thirteen Principles of the Jewish Faith as laid down by the codifier of Jewish law, Maimonides (1135-1204), is that God rewards the good and punishes the bad.
One, therefore, need not be a conservative Christian to believe in some form of hell for the evil. All one need be is a rational believer in a just God. For if there is a just God, it is inconceivable that those who do evil and those who do good have identical fates. A just God must care about justice, and since there is little justice in this world, there has to be in the next. And belief in the next world is also not confined to Christianity. As the Encyclopedia Judaica, the greatest contemporary compilation of Jewish scholarship (edited largely by non-religious Jews) notes in the first sentence under the heading "Afterlife," "Judaism has always believed in an afterlife."
The second question is easily answered. Much of humanity has been adversely affected by modern-day terror. The lives of millions -- virtually all Palestinians and Israelis, for example -- have been terribly affected by Arafat. And there are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been destroyed or shattered by him. At the same time, other than a few sycophants enriched by some of the billions of dollars he embezzled from the Palestinians, no one has had a better life because Yasser Arafat lived.
Throughout modern history, even terrorists had moral boundaries. Terrorists historically attempted to avoid murdering innocent men, women and children. Arafat, however, made the murder and maiming of completely innocent men, women and children the very purpose of terror and one of his life's major legacies.
Yasser Arafat single-handedly made nihilistic acts of cruelty routine, even respectable. Many people were horrified at the Palestinian slaughter of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. But humanity gradually became inured to Arafat-style slaughter. Palestinian and Muslim disciples targeted schoolchildren for death in the Israeli city of Ma'alot and later in the Russian city of Beslan; tortured and murdered American diplomats in Sudan; and Arafat created a society whose only exports were new forms of religious hatred and new expressions of barbarity. Thanks to him, the Palestinian name is identified among people of goodwill with barbarity just as the German name came to be associated with barbarity as a result of Hitler.
If, then, there is a just God, and Arafat was the particularly venal human being described here, the answer to the third question is obvious.
Just as any decent human being would want good people to be rewarded in whatever existence there is after this life, they would want the cruelest of people to be punished.
So, of course, I hope Yasser Arafat is in hell. It means that a just God rules the universe. If you think that is hard-hearted, consider the alternative, that one of the most corrupt and cruel human beings of the past half-century is resting in peace. Whoever isn't bothered by that is the one with the hard heart.
Very well said.
On the contrary, I have put much thought into it and I believe. It is those who reject it because the cultural mores simply won't allow for it that have not put much thought into it. I believe that God exists and that the universe is as He revealed it, not as I wish it would be. His wisdom is infinite ours compared to His is foolishness.
But Hell? No. It has no place in the universe of a loving God.
Sure it does. Just as the pet wrote:
"Sacred Justice moved my architect. I was raised here by Divine Omnipotence, Primordial Love and Ultimate Intellect."
-from Canto three, the Inferno.(The gate of Hell)
The point is that life is short and eternity is long. God gave us the awesome responsibility of deciding where to spend it. He does not send us there WE choose to go there. He has told us and given us all that we need to get to Heaven. Reject God's love and wisdom and you spend eternity with all those who have rejected it as well.
Only God can judge. It is correct to believe in God's justice, but wrong to believe that we know God's judgement of a person's soul, including our own.
I hope Tony Orlando goes to hell, god knows he puts us all there.
Probably the best that we can do is pray that Yasser (That's my baby! ) Arafat has met with God's full judgement, whatever that may have been. Frankly, it is my sincere hope that St. Peter put him on the express elevator to HELL!!
The Bible teaches us to not gloat when the wicked fall.
I see. So unless God conforms to our expectations and puny moral wisdom, he's unjust.
You know, in making ouselves the test of all that's right, and demanding that God himself submit to our judgment, we put ourselves forward as gods in our own right. That's idolatry. It's a choice for ourselves in preference to the true God.
You can go to hell for that.
you're using your God-given abilities to seek Him, and that's a good thing too.
Consider: Since the wages of sin is DEATH, not hell, the question then becomes; what is "death"?
One of the things about the Bible, is that it is consistent. That's a good thing too, when it comes to your search for knowledge about God, His great love for you. It's we who are inconsistent! But know that He rewards those who diligently search for Him.
My prayer is that you are encouraged to seek Him. Don't give up! His Holy Spirit will guide you....He promised you that.
Death? It's real clearly described. See Ecclesiastes 9:10...."there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, wither thou goest"
9:5 "....the dead know not any thing,....for the memory of them is forgotten." (They - the dead - have no memory. King James way of saying)
Using "logic" is fine. You're supposed to! Then, the descriptions of the resurrection make sense.
Daniel 12:2 "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake...."
1 Thessalonians 4:13-16 But I would not have you to be ignorant (brother!) concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent ("precede") them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first...."
See? I think your logic serves you well. The dead sleep, in what may best be called a dreamless sleep.
As for the "eternalness" of that sleep, see Jude 7, where it is described that Sodom & Gomorrha are "suffering the vengence of eternal fire" Does this mean we could go there, wherever they are(!), to see this burning?
No.
The smoke that goes up for ever from the fire that shall not be quenched night nor day (Isaiah 34: 9 & 10), symbolizes, like it does in Jude, the eternalness of the judgement, the fact of it, not the burning, or suffering itself.
The wages of sin being death, and death being eternal dreamless sleep, and all that....
Take heart! God loves you. Jesus suffered miserably, and died, so that through faith in Him, we could for....ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Hmmm does this mean that Paul hopes that the lost go to hell? I think it means he is washing his hands of them and is focussing his efforts on the Church. That focus is clearly seen in so many of his writings.
"Judge not lest ye be judged".
Here is a verse that one of the most misused verses of all. Judgement is a good thing all over the bible. Thise one verse, taken out of context by people that have never even read the whole bible, makes people think we are not supposed to have any negative opinions of anyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. Using the rest of the bible to interpret this rules out that idea and leaves us with....hmmm...Don't decide someone is just totally evil and wish them to be in hell.
'Simply put, it is not morally correct to wish or hope that anyone and I mean anyone goes to hell.'
I understand your deep reasoning, and it's obvious that you followed Prager's logic and you have refutted it flawlessly.
Short of the whole bible, simply reading the next verse is enough to clarify the meaning of, "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (Matthew 7:1).
Did you know money is the root of all evil? (Pink Floyd 19:73)
interesting
Well said...
(so why no photos on your profile page, hmmm? ;)
bttt
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