God should be put
first when he puts himself first to consign people who die in mortal sin to
Hell forever. Hell implies that the worst thing we can do is turn our
backs on God and is so bad that we must suffer forever for it if we die.
Clearly we have to love God alone and use others as tools
to please him. Mourning must be a sin
for it implies really loving others which the doctrine of God forbids so Hell
and God both ban mourning. You are not
supposed to really care if a person dies or not as long as God is happy. Jesus even dared to tell his apostles that if
they really loved him they would be glad to see him die and go to the Father
instead of wanting him to stay with them (John 14:28).
Catholics say that Protestants who hold that Catholics are going to Hell are bigots and being very uncharitable. Very isn't the right word. They are being totally uncharitable. If that is bigotry, then what is it to look upon a dying person and think they might or probably will go to Hell? The Catholics actually admit - albeit indirectly - that Hell is a vindictive doctrine.
You are not allowed
to disapprove if God sends a person to Hell.
It is impossible to see how it could be right or possible to mourn the
dead when you think, “If he or she is in Hell I don’t mind. I am untroubled if he or she is condemned to
despair eternal”. This attitude turns
your tears into crocodile tears. It is
true that it is better for no Christian faith to exist than for one person to
be damned over it. The Church denies it
but it is as true as ever.
If feelings are
allowed then you have to feel glad that he or she is in Hell forever if he or
she is there but you would have to feel terrible about the sins that put them
there. It is just the sins that trouble
you. The more one hates sin the better
so the more one loves God the stronger will one’s loathing of sin be. The holy have to live in torment. It is more important to emotionally hate the
sin than to be happy that a person is in Hell so if it comes down to a choice
you pick the first.
Some say that nobody
has to have bad feelings about sin and it is enough to just unemotionally
disapprove of it. You can disapprove and
still feel happy as long as it is not sin that is making you happy but
disapproval requires some measure of unhappiness so unemotional disapproval is
a fiction.
To have no intense
feelings against sin would only be acceptable if you can’t hate it as much as
possible. It would be a sin not to hate
evil and sin as much as you could for it deserves it. If we do not try to emotionally hate sin as
much as we can, then we do not love God for the less you choose to hate sin the
closer you are to committing it and to take a step towards sin is to sin. The doctrines of Hell and sin are a recipe
for complete misery.
What happens when you
hate sin so much that you end up killing a person to stop them sinning? That would not prove the hate immoral because
you killed in spite of your hatred for evil more than because of it. Though the killing was wrong, you could not
resist. It is better to do that than to
take a step towards sin.
So, Hell on earth
gives you Heaven forever after.
Everlasting punishing
is a nightmare that has no light at the end of the tunnel for the relatives and
friends of suicide victims. The Church regards
suicide when committed by any anyone who is in their right mind as a sin that
merits everlasting damnation. Many
methods of suicide are painful and prevent the victim from thinking clearly
enough to be able to repent. The Church
says that nobody can know for sure where any dead person has gone but this is
no consolation when it is most likely that sane or reasonably sane suicides
have gone to Hell. In the turmoil of
bereavement nobody can be blamed for feeling awesome torment at the thought
that the person even might be in Hell even if it is unlikely.
The apostle John (1
John 5:14-17) declared by the authority of God that when we see a person die in
sin or without God’s mercy we can be positive that that person has gone to
torment unending. He wrote that we can
pray that God will give life – the life of God, ie, grace – to the person whose
sin takes away that life but whose sin is not deadly. Some Catholic Bibles have the verse that you
cannot pray for anybody who you see committing a mortal sin. The Catholic term, mortal sin, was not used
by John to mean serious sin that makes God reject you but a specific kind of
serious sin that could not be repented.
John forbade praying for a person who committed the deadly sin. This sin could only be what is called final
impenitence – holding on to your antagonism towards God on your deathbed – for
what other sin could not be repented?
John is saying that we must not pray for anybody who has died without
showing repentance. The person cannot
repent after death which is why prayer is forbidden. Incidentally,
The thought that a
person might be in Hell is every bit as painful and damaging as a parent who
feels that something bad has happened to their runaway son or daughter. Correction – it must be worse. It may be an unlikely possibility but it can
happen and that is what torments.
The Church says we do
not know how high the chance is that people will go to Hell. We have to assume that it is very high to be
on the safe side. It is better to die of
terror than to suffer in Hell forever.
This will make people who have the humanity to mourn the dead suffer
terribly.