If there's no God, will bad people just get away with it ?

Akusai www

Yes, some of them. It’s an unavoidable consequence of an imperfect justice system run by imperfect beings. Of course, some people get away with it (whatever “it” is) even if God does exist, obviously.

There will always be people doing bad things and some of them will get away with those things, but we have created an ingenious (if imperfect and probably improvable) system by which to track down the perpetrators of such wrongs and hold them accountable.

Will bad people be punished eternally if there is no God? Probably not, but why would you want that to happen, anyway? What’s wrong with justice in this world? Are you so desperate to punish the cunning rogues who manage to get away with their bad behavior that you wish upon them an eternity of hellfire?

In which case, you’re getting away with some pretty bad behavior, in my opinion.

Paula Kirby

Christianity is a disgusting religion. This relentless obsession with dividing the world into ‘good people’ and ‘bad people’ and then fretting about whether or not the ‘bad people’ are going to be punished enough. Not bad for a religion that claims to be about love and compassion and forgiveness!

There is so much to say on this subject.

First, what makes you think that ‘bad people’ get away with it if there is no god? Why shouldn’t consequences in the here and now count? Is spending 20 years of your life in prison ‘getting away with it’? Is losing the trust and respect of your friends and family ‘getting away with it’? Why, oh loving, compassionate, forgiving Christian, should punishment have to be eternal in order to count?

Second, this repugnant conviction that we would all, given half a chance, run riot and commit every possible crime or ‘sin’ under the sun, and that it’s only the fear of hellfire that stops us. This is just rubbish. If it were true, we would expect to see more atheists than religious people in jail. In reality, atheists are enormously under-represented in any statistics you will find about prison populations, and that holds true across a wide range of countries and cultures. You might like to ask yourself why it is that the US, one of the most deeply religious countries in the world, imprisons more of its population than any other country and why well over 90% of prisoners call themselves Christians. Take a look at this talk that was given at a Cambridge University conference last year. You will learn that tests have repeatedly and consistently shown that in EVERY culture – regardless of gender, race or religion (or lack of it) – 4 out of 5 people will take the ‘moral’ option, EVEN WHEN there is no chance of discovery if they did not; and 1 in 5 will not. How does that sit with your Christian doctrine of original sin, and us all being inherently wicked and evil and deserving of hell?

Third, heaven and hell are NOT supposed to be about rewarding ‘good’ people and punishing ‘bad’ ones. Read your bible. Heaven is for those who BELIEVE, and hell is for those who don’t. If you still think ‘believer’ is synonymous with ‘good’ and ‘non-believer’ is synonymous with ‘bad’, please go back and read point 2 again. Christianity claims that even the most depraved person is assured an eternal place in heaven if they will only believe in Jesus! Now, if anything constitutes ‘getting away with it’, it has to be that, surely?

Think of Robert Mugabe: a tyrant, a brutal dictator, who has brought about the deaths by starvation of thousands upon thousands of Zimbabweans through refusing to allow aid through to parts of the country with large numbers of his political opponents. But he is a Christian, in good standing with the Roman Catholic church, has had official audiences with the Pope, no less, and firmly believes in Jesus. Is it JUSTICE to think of him in heaven for all eternity? Even more to the point, could heaven BE heaven for his victims if this monster were there with them?

As for the notion of hell, it is an utterly obscene idea, and the Christian teaching that it has anything to do with justice is enough in its own right to expose Christianity as the repugnant nonsense it is. Think of the ‘worst’ person you know. The most prolific criminal, perhaps a brutal murderer. Now just think about the punishment you think should be in store for them: to burn alive for ever. And to be given a body that has been specially designed by your just and loving and compassionate god to feel the agony of burning, but not to be consumed by the fire, so the agony will just go on and on and on with no hope of release. Have you any idea how grotesque that is? How utterly sick? How disgusting that makes you seem to anyone who has stopped to think about this even for a moment?

Imagine an earthly judge who condemned a criminal to have his arm held in a fire for even 1 minute. What kind of crime could POSSIBLY justify such a grotesque punishment? Can you imagine the outcry? The disgust? The shame at being part of a society that could contemplate such barbarism as part of its justice system? But your religion would have us believe that the equivalent – not for 1 minute, not for 10 minutes, or an hour, or a day, or a year, or 1000 years, or 10,000 years, or a thousand million years, but for EVER – is just punishment for the puny ‘sins’ that humans are capable of? Disgusting. And – more importantly – complete tosh.

Please take your foul Christian spectacles off for a moment and look around you with fresh eyes unencumbered by the disgusting notion of ‘sin’. Try adding the filter of love and compassion you Christians are supposed to be so good at. You will see people just getting on with their lives to the best of their ability, loving their families, caring for their friends, coping with trouble and grief and worry and doing so with considerable resilience, fortitude and good humour. You will see generosity and compassion. Cheerfulness in the face of adversity. You will see others almost crushed by the weight of the troubles they bear, but somehow keeping going, sustained by their care for others and others’ care for them. You will see people putting themselves out for one another, caring for one another. No, you won’t see perfection, and yes, you will see some acts of meanness and cruelty and selfishness. But most people you encounter will be decent and kind and will be doing their best, regardless of whether they believe in your horrible god or not.

What a scandal that your religion teaches you to dismiss them all as sinners who deserve eternal torment. It says an awful lot more about those of you who believe this disgusting nonsense than it does about the moral state of humans in general.

SmartLX

If there’s no God, they won’t “get away” at all. They’ll be dead.

logicel

You mean bad like Hitler? You want someone like him to suffer for all eternity? Why? Wasn’t the fact that he knew that he got his arse kicked and lost all his power just before he committed suicide enough of a punishment?

We do have a propensity in wanting revenge. I control this propensity by admitting that I have it and then having a good laugh at it. We need instead to focus on taking care of ourselves and others and not obsessing about whether or not ‘bad’ people will get their ‘just deserts’ for all eternity. We do our best to make the world as fair and just as is possible.

Not being able to control our propensity for revenge is not a reason to believe in an unproven entity.