Is annihilation false doctrine?

[Wootah]

This is the philosophical perspective.

This all assumes a just legal system.

When someone is sentenced to go to prison they will only be able to end that prison sentence by paying the measured fine or serving the measured amount of time in prison. If that person has served their prison sentence and then you kill them you are acting unjustly.

If God is holy, righteous and just and we have sinned against God then hell is the prison we go to unless we pay for our sins against God or until we serve our time.

Problem a - is that we can never justly pay for our sins against an infinite God and so can never leave the prison.
Problem b - is that annihilation means that the sentence is over and God killed the person after the sentence was over.

Therefore Annihilation makes God unjust.

Put another way, at the point where God intends to annihilate a being it means that God regards that they have served their sentence. Therefore the being should be allowed into heaven. They have paid for their sins against God.

If they have not served their sentence and God annihilates them fails because as I just said, at the point of annihilation it means they have served their sentence.

Anecdote: I am pro-death penalty but the biggest argument against the death penalty for me is that prison lets the criminal rot for longer. Something about the execution is unjust, it is too light a punishment. I would still reply back that the cost to the state for keeping the criminal alive takes resources away from others and in a fallen world the prisoner could escape.

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Just thinking about this.

After annihilation has the person paid for their sins?

If yes, then why aren't they in heaven?
If no, then they have escaped punishment or, worse, is God unable to justly punish?

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Is annihilation false doctrine?

[Bust Nak]

Imagine: You are in prison for murder. At the point of execution either in the prison or if I cruelly let you outside and then execute you, at that point, the sentence is logically complete otherwise you would be in prison. The execution would be unjust because the just thing to do is leave you in prison to serve your sentence.

You are still treating the execution as something extra on top of a prison sentence, but the very premise of a death sentence is that the execution is itself the sentence.

Execution in this life or annihilation in the next is unjust. We do it in this life because of realistic issues such as expediency, or the danger of keeping a murderer alive.

Or it's a fitting punishment for the crime? Who are you to question the sentence of the ultimate judge? Why does execution have to have an excuse instead of the right and just sentence? I am not going as far as to say that it is fitting punishment, just that it's not immediately obvious that it is unfitting, and if you are saying that it is unjust then you need to present a case of why it is unfitting.

You can argue that annihilation is worse than prison but if I was annihilated I wouldn't know. How is that just?

As above. It's not really about better or worse, it's about whether it is fitting. It's just if it is the fitting punishment that fits the crime. If you want to argue that it is unfitting then go ahead, my response will depend of what you say.

Why not just a godly lobotomy so the murderer doesn't remember themselves?

Good questions, and that's something for Christians to think about, there are all sorts of alternative a god can do.

New thought: Wouldn't annihilation be the same place unborn babies are?

I am thinking no? I would have thought that they still exist as souls under Christianity, where as the annihilated wouldn't exist. The Bible mentioned God knowing people before they are born.

Annihilation seems beset by reductio ad absurdum.

Well, can you produce an absurdity in the from of A and not A from what I said?

[Wootah]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #60]

Either way, it's obviously not love for those being tortured for eternity.

We can agree on that. God is not showing love to those who do not want love. I wonder what a place that is absent of good and love is like or could be called?

[Mithrae]

But you aren't pointing out a contradiction. You are just using the word.

No, as I said it is only a contradiction with love "in any remotely meaningful sense" of the word. You can declare that torture is love and black is white all day long if it tickles your fancy, but unless your claims are making contact with the real world of human understanding at some point it's all just meaningless jabbering (at best!). Torture is not love, not in any remotely meaningful sense of the word.

The best I can help you is to point out that one parent can be loving by giving their child lollies and tv and another discipline and good food.

We're talking about torture, for all eternity. (Or in some watered-down versions, 'separation from God'; the ultimate in solitary confinement, which by many accounts is one of if not the worst forms of torture.) The use of the word 'justice' to describe strictly punitive suffering is a bit of a stretch, but likening it to explicitly behaviour-correcting terms like 'discipline' is both disingenuous and totally undercuts your position. Any parents who inflicted even a day of Hell on their children would be rightly locked up as abusers not fit to raise them.

[brunumb]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #60]

Either way, it's obviously not love for those being tortured for eternity.

We can agree on that. God is not showing love to those who do not want love. I wonder what a place that is absent of good and love is like or could be called?

Not showing love and torturing are two different things. That said, who does not want love? If God's love involve eternal torture then I guess no one should want God's love. It seems to me that some people will jump through all sorts of hoops to justify Hell as a place of eternal torture, but for the life of me I cannot understand why. What a display of hubris. Presumably they firmly believe that there is no way that they themselves would qualify for such treatment.

[Wootah]

[Replying to brunumb in post #65]

Which hoop?

I think the core issue for each of us is we want God or our parents or society or our friends to love us as we are. It's satanic sadly.

[Mithrae]

Not showing love and torturing are two different things. That said, who does not want love? If God's love involve eternal torture then I guess no one should want God's love. It seems to me that some people will jump through all sorts of hoops to justify Hell as a place of eternal torture, but for the life of me I cannot understand why.

I would guess
A) Because some biblical authors said so
B) Because nothing keeps doubters in line and gets bums on pews and money in the collection plate like fear and dread
C) Because a certain twisted kind of 'logic' would suggest that an infinitely enjoyable reward, infinitely easy to gain (just name it and claim it) should be matched by an infinitely cruel punishment for failure to comply

[Wootah]

[Replying to Bust Nak in post #62]

You are still treating the execution as something extra on top of a prison sentence, but the very premise of a death sentence is that the execution is itself the sentence.

Yes and I think you are trying to win an argument and not examine the position being questioned.

Is execution in some cases just? No, execution is a practical expedience and reality of the world. At best it is an acknowledgement of hell and our desire to send someone there before they can find forgiveness in Jesus, but it is not justice. I am pro execution on the practical expedience grounds.

If you can pause and allow yourself to realise that then the rest flows from there.

[Wootah]

2 bonus thought experiments:

1) Was it just that Hitler died only once for his crimes? This question reveals the inadequacy of annihilation.

2) When a criminal is caught with no way out and they kill themselves. Did they bring justice to themselves? This is reductio ad absurdum as they were clearly trying to avoid justice being done.

[William]

2 bonus thought experiments:

1) Was it just that Hitler died only once for his crimes? This question reveals the inadequacy of annihilation.

2) When a criminal is caught with no way out and they kill themselves. Did they bring justice to themselves? This is reductio ad absurdum as they were clearly trying to avoid justice being done.

I fail to see a problem.

I suppose it has to do with peoples beliefs.

If what Hitler did somehow cause his victims an eternal life of suffering, then I would agree that he at least deserves to go through the same.

But if those victims died and entered an eternal life of not suffering, then who cares if Hitler only died once?

[1213]

2 bonus thought experiments:

1) Was it just that Hitler died only once for his crimes? This question reveals the inadequacy of annihilation.

2) When a criminal is caught with no way out and they kill themselves. Did they bring justice to themselves? This is reductio ad absurdum as they were clearly trying to avoid justice being done.

I think the correct thing would be that Hitler compensates what he has done. For example, if he has taken life, he gives it back. Obviously, he is not going to do that, but I don’t think him suffering eternally would really compensate anything.