Various religions have accepted the concept of “hell”, although I don’t think it is widely embraced by most people. In more barbaric times and places, it could be an effective tool in helping to control anti-social and violent behavior. However, I do not believe that God is cruel and vengeful. God created us as imperfect beings in an imperfect world. Yes, you can and should overcome mental disease and violent tendencies by your choices and the help of others, but to know that all of the factors of nature and nurture are present to create violent individuals, and then to damn them for eternity would be cruel and illogical. Rather than “evil”, I would call these people “tragic” because they have had the deck stacked against them. I am not saying that they should not be punished and isolated from society for everyone’s protection. I would defend myself, my family and other innocent people from these sociopaths by any means possible. “Turn the other cheek” is a wise and noble sentiment when it comes to minor altercations and verbal warfare, but nature dictates that we defend ourselves when it comes to life and limb. Still, I think that God’s intent was for us all to find ways to cure and prevent these “tragic souls”, just as we have been charged with the quest to eradicate disease and natural disaster.
I now need to mention a special group of people who are often the victims of tragic souls and other unfortunate disasters. Like most of us, I have friends who have suffered great tragedies like the loss of a child and have lost all faith in God; call them non-believers. These are people who have thought more seriously and prayed harder than most of us. I can usually convince them with logic that there must be or have been a God the creator. Still, they don’t “believe in” God because they have been so gravely disappointed. They have concluded, as we have here, that God created this world and left us to solve its problems together and make it a better place. They are convinced that if God played an active role in our lives, then horrible things would not happen to innocent people and children.
Unlike these “non-believers”, there are many people who console themselves after such a loss with the idea that their child’s death was a part of a master plan and that we are all going to “a better place” where we will all be reunited eventually. The non-believers can’t imagine that any young child would be better off going to a place all alone, without their parents or anyone they know, or that any master plan would be so cruel. For a child, they wonder, what is “better” about a place where they can’t lay in the grass and look at cloud formations, ride a bike, swim in the lake or play in the waves of the ocean with their family? They can’t accept that maybe these things are possible in a different way. They disagree with our postulate of a master plan whereby our souls and personalities live on in a spiritual world and continue to contribute to and communicate with our earthly world. They see no evidence of either.
Those of us with hope and belief in such an afterlife leave room for yet another “miracle of birth” when we enter a new world. Yes, perhaps their child was tragically denied the joys of existence on earth, but who knows what the next journey will bring? Just as an infant knows nothing of living on earth, our spirits may discover the new joys of another world.
To be clear, these non-believers are not tragic souls. They do not turn bitter and negative. Many of them start or join crusades to prevent similar tragedies from befalling others, and in the process create a better world and legendary souls. As I have said before, it is these acts of sharing and caring and working to make the world a better place that God rewards, not attendance at a particular place of worship or professing faith in a particular religion. I believe that God does not curse, but rather increases his blessings and karmic power to those non-believers who choose to use their time on earth to make it the best place possible.