Forever

 

I see humans as limited, mortal, inherently imperfect. I also love the Bible and Judaism and Christianity, but I hesitate to accept the prevalent theological account, the all or nothing excessive divine reaction to and judgement accordingly meted outs against puny humans after death for their voluntary offenses and or willed compliance with divine wishes.

Christian and perhaps Jewish cosmology that establishes that the unrepentant sinner without grace burns in hell forever, and that the virtuous, faithful near-living-saint who accepts Jesus or Yahweh wholeheartedly into her life and heart is saved forever.

My take is that the good deities, in the name of being just and fair, with their keen sense of moderation, proportionality, and fair punishments and rewards, mete out to humans, a divine justice that is, for most humans, after death comes, delivered to each of the departed as their punishment or reward, negative or positive sentences which are of limited duration, not in effect forever.

This could lead to a belief in something like the reincarnation of soul—it could but need not too--because in one life time, humans of such deep, natural depravity, reared in cultures of extreme primitiveness and barbarism, that we expect short-lived, children of blighted, confused, limited consciousness, to make responsible choices, to make voluntary moral and spiritual choices, with forever after-death ramifications, such excessive sentencing is not required, in most instances, and it is not deserving as such drastic permanent, divine sanctioning. Should divine sentences at judgement day be eternal?

The Bible account of burning forever or going to heaven forever seem too extreme to me, and undeserved on either end, going to hell or going to heaven.