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Maybe the more general question you're really asking is if there were a way for real justice to be done and for people to be accountable for their bad actions, would it be wrong to take satisfaction that wrongs had been righted?
The thing is, torturing Stalin will not bring back a single person he had murdered; torturing a rapist doesn't un-rape his (or her!) victims.
If you're really upset about Stalin AND believe in the Christian hell, you would do better to ask god why he permits Stalins to have their way with millions of hapless people in the first place. Given that he's supposedly all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving, why didn't he? Huh?
At any rate I think being putative diminishes people. Once there is a wrong committed, the most that a sane penal system could usefully do (in this life OR the next) would be to show the miscreant the error of their ways and rehabilitate them so that they could be returned to society as fully functioning, kind, respectful members of the human race. We have lived for so many countless generations with concepts of god and sin and crime and punishment that are controlling and authoritarian that we feel we are somehow condoning misdeeds unless we thoroughly punish them. But really we are condoning them if we don't have a way to correct for them and to actually prevent them from recurring.
But do you really think those such as Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc. can truly be reformed to be good?
But do you really think those such as Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc. can truly be reformed to be good?
Probably not, as they are severe psychopaths and the state of the art in mental health treatment isn't really that great, especially for such ailments. But that does not justify tormenting or torturing them. That only diminishes the jailer and by extension, society.
If they aren't reformable then they need to be kept separate from society for the safety of others, of course. But nothing is accomplished by making their lives a living hell either. Honestly the death penalty would be kinder than most forms of incarceration, but we don't have the will to administer it so best not to even bother going there.
My preference would be that we attempt to reform such characters even if it's not likely to work. We have to pay to warehouse them anyway, we might as well make the effort and hopefully learn from it. Presuming that there are good criteria in place for determining when someone has truly reformed, so they wouldn't be released inappropriately. It seems to me that a concerted effort to do the right thing in such difficult cases would be a great research opportunity that could benefit the rest of humanity.
You might want to look into how Norway deals with criminals, even hardened ones. Their prisons are comfortable and homey, the rules non-putative, and they build within the prison a healthy society of mutual aid and support. It is almost like they create a functional family experience to replace the likely dysfunctional one that landed the inmates in there in the first place. The result is a very low recidivism rate.
Also the longest sentence anyone can get in their system is 20 years. Even the mass murderer who killed dozens in a rampage a few years ago, will be released in 20 years, though doubtless closely monitored and if he's still that nuts, probably will be re-convicted for something else in short order. I am not sure how I feel about THAT hard of an upper limit, but in the big picture their crime rates, especially violent crime, are low.
One reason this works is that the system is based on responsibility and earned respect rather than an authoritarian model of punishment. The guards are almost like therapists and coaches and are invested in the success of their charges and they are incentivized for results in reforming the inmates, not simply to warehouse them and control them. It is a remarkable system that we could learn much from.
We're already there. Hasn't anyone figured that out yet?
I tend to concur with this statement..
The question was...IF there is a Hell, like in the legends, with fire and brimstone, would it be ok to mentally decide who should go there. As an idle thought, sure why not.
I know many people don't believe in a hell, but for the sake or argument there is and there are people that will spend all of eternity facing eternal damnation of pure pain and suffering burning in the lake of fire forever do you think it's really wrong to think there are some that deserve it? In my case more generally I think of pedophiles, rapists, serial killers. And more personally Nixon, Bill & Hillary clinton, Angela Merkel, George W Bush, ISIS leaders, Hitler, Stalin, etc.
If, indeed all of them were to suffer eternal suffering and I was happy to know they did do you think that would be wrong no matter how much they all justifiably deserved it?
While I think it's perfectly understandable that someone would
consider such individuals as deserving of endless torment in hell, I
think that, upon contemplating it further, such a conclusion would
be short-lived.
The problem with infinite torment for finite wrongdoing is that it
would be a far worse crime than anything committed by those being
tormented endlessly.
Another problem with wishing eternal torment on people is that one
would also be wishing that those people eternally remain in the
condition they were in when they committed whatever wrongdoings
are allegedly deserving of such treatment. This would make no
sense, if one truly dislikes those wrongdoings and the condition that
brought them about. One would, ideally, wish to see restoration
rather than mere revenge, if one is on a morally higher ground than
those they deem so 'evil' for whatever reason.
Long story short, it's understandable, but ultimately it's self-defeating
and nonsensical.
I know many people don't believe in a hell, but for the sake or argument there is and there are people that will spend all of eternity facing eternal damnation of pure pain and suffering burning in the lake of fire forever do you think it's really wrong to think there are some that deserve it? In my case more generally I think of pedophiles, rapists, serial killers. And more personally Nixon, Bill & Hillary clinton, Angela Merkel, George W Bush, ISIS leaders, Hitler, Stalin, etc.
If, indeed all of them were to suffer eternal suffering and I was happy to know they did do you think that would be wrong no matter how much they all justifiably deserved it?
I have no interest in Osama bin Laden, Ghenghis Khan, or Hitler being in the eternal type of hell you mentioned. If they were there, I'd be filled with pity. I can imagine no worse fate for myself than me going to live in paradise and Osama bin Laden in hell forever. I'd consider it a very evil thing to do to leave him down there without begging god to snuff out his existence and I wouldn't want to risk forgetting about him and becoming that evil.
However, I don't care at all if other people feel great happiness at the thought of people who have harmed them or others being in hell. If that makes them feel better, that's wonderful and I encourage them to continue to hold that fantasy.
I would also think that it would take being in some kind of personal
hell already to become the kinds of individuals that Hitler, etc. were.
So adding more hell to their existence seems a rather redundant
exercise in futility, and I don't think God would be entertained by
such exercises.
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