The King James version of the Bible has a fair amount to say about Hell. A single case in point:
“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
~ Revelation 20:14
Some people report to believe that Hell is ‘removal from God’ or simply a form of being ‘extinguished’ from existence. But I’m not writing to try and interpret any particular verse or version of ‘The Bible’ and certainly not to pretend that one version or the other is ‘right’.
I will note, however that according to a Pew Research Survey, 62% of U.S. Adults believe in Hell. Of those 50%++ don’t have such an apologist version of Hell where the damned are simply snuffed out. – Rather, their belief in Hell is of the fire and brimstone variety. Indeed: 53% believe that those in Hell have ‘psychological suffering’ and 51% believe that the damned have, ‘physical suffering’.
Stated simply: over 50% of Americans think that Hell is a place of torment and suffering. Many of these people believe that this torture is eternal. E T E R N A L.
Let’s think about that through the example of Adolf Hitler. (Even if you can name someone you think is worse, I assume that the reader will concede that Hitler is going to be in the top ten list of immoral, vile people for almost everyone who isn’t themselves a racist, xenophobe and/or authoritarian advocate and/or psychopath.)
Let’s try and quantify Hitler’s crimes in terms of human anguish. And I’ll try and calculate those crimes through the harshest numbers I can think to apply.
For starters, (although I’m confident that there are probably a variety of different numbers for the dead and and wounded of World War 2), the National World War II Museum puts the figures at:
- Battle Deaths: 15,000,000
- Battle Wounded: 25,000,000
- Civilian Deaths: 45,000,000 to 95,000,000 (We’ll reference the higher number of 95 million.)
That is 135 million people directly, physically impacted by WWII.
Let’s assume that of those 135 million, each had a circle of people who were also adversely affected. This is very hard to quantify, but instead of using a conservative number (such as the average 1940’s family size of 3.19) we’ll look at the much more expansive Dunbar number which says that humans can comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships. We’ll assume that these 150 people also had some indirect suffering. – Maybe they had to sacrifice something or provided support or even just felt a little sad for those who were affected directly. But because such impact is impossible to calculate, we’ll treat the least inconvenienced as equal to the most devastated. (Analogous to saying that someone who was a little sad by the War, suffered as much as someone who had a prolonged, painful death.) Furthermore, we’ll assume that those 150 people who suffered indirectly can be counted more than once in their suffering. In other words: someone who lost a sister and an uncle in World War 2 will be counted twice in calculation of suffering.
Therefore, we’ll take the number 135 million and multiple it by 150 putting our number at 20,250,000,000. – That is twenty billion, two-hundred-million people. (For context, please note that at the time of this writing the current world population is ‘only’ 8.1 billion people [and one source indicated that the entire history of humanity on earth was around 117 billion people].) Still, let’s bump our number up to 30 billion so that we’re dealing with a rounder number and then double it to 60 billion to account for untold animal suffering, environmental impact and all around historical ramifications.
Of these 60 billion ‘units’ of suffering lives, some will have endured pain or loss measured in time from birth to old age. In other words: some will have paid a toll of loss measured in less than a minute and others will have paid with the totality of their lives. Again, it is impossible to calculate so I’ll apply a bias in the direction of assuming the ‘worst-case’ time span of 100 years of wasted life for each life impacted (great and small).
That calculation is 60 billion lives x 100 years for 6,000,000,000,000 years representing some level of loss. That is 6 Trillion years!
Now let’s lay 100% of that responsibility directly at the feet of Adolf Hitler. What punishment does that deserve?
Virtually no human civilization that we’d call deserving of the title ‘civilization’ believes in torture. Certainly less so: a lifetime of torture. I think that based on the human measure of justice the majority of humanity has decided that as punishment a person may be executed or imprisoned in a small box for the entirety of their lives for the murder of just one person or similar heinous crime. Of course, many people are given multiple life-sentences for their crimes but because we don’t have the ability to extend lives much past the age of 100, those sentences are both symbolic and judicial ‘cover’ in the event that the guilty manages to free themselves of one or more of the verdicts.
But even if we had a means in which to artificially extend the life of the guilty, or a ‘Phantom Zone‘ in which to imprison him, I wonder at what measure of time we’d say, ‘enough’ to the worst of all crimes. If we were capable, would humanity really lock Hitler in a box of pain for 6 trillion years? – Again, for context: the very Universe itself is estimated to be about 13.8 billion years old. (And in a vain attempt to try and encapsulate such absurdly large timeframes consider that 6 trillion years is 434 x the age of the universe.)
I acknowledge that my attempts at quantifying the atrocities of Hitler into units of times is trite, but I posit that if there was such a mechanism to allow it, even those who suffered the worst at Hitler’s hands would, given a thousand, or million, or billion, or trillian years eventually say: ok, Hitler has paid for his crime. Because, at what point (measured in time and/or torture) could humanity itself be called, ‘evil’ in our bloodlust and vengeance?
And yet, according to those who believe in Hell and Eternal Damnation their benevolent, all knowing, all powerful, (merciful?) God will condemn Hitler to some form of torment for all of time. If there is an eternity, than 6 Trillion Years is an infinitely small number. And it must be underscored that in the beliefs of so many, this punishment of Hell isn’t ‘just’ imprisonment, it is TORTURE for ALL OF TIME.
But remember: this entire analysis is based on the worst of the worst: Adolf Freaking Hitler: mass murderer and war criminal! When really, these same Biblical True Believers also subscribe to the notion that many millions or billion of their fellow humans have committed ‘sins’ against god and are equally deserving the same eternal Hell as Hitler.
“But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.“
~ Mark 3:22–29
I believe (or hope) that even the supporters of this philosophy of eternal damnation would change their belief if they truly considered and grasped the meaning of what they promote as ‘good’.
Or as one might say:
“Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation; O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!”
~ Psalm 43:1
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