So, what do you think, what is the best response to the question "Why is it reasonable to believe in prisons, but in the hell?"? My first instinct was to say "Well, there are people who have been to prisons and have come back to tell us, but nobody has returned from hell to confirm us it exists.". However, I think a valid counter-argument to that is "But there have been some near-death-experiencer claiming to have been to hell.".
Another response I can think of to the question from the title is "How could hell ever be a just punishment? Hell is an infinite punishment, and all the crimes we can do on this world are finite.". However, I think a valid response to that is: "How is putting people into prisons justice? Nobody murders unless he or she is insane. And prison is not a place where a sane person will become sane, it is a place from which he will return with even more psychological problems. Besides, how is it justice when you have about 50% chance of getting away with a murder? Around half of murder cases are never solved. Justice means willful actions have predictable consequences. Furthermore, we are living in a society where nobody knows first-hand what is legal and what isn't. The laws we have are so complicated that nobody can fully understand our legal system. That is not justice either."
Another response I can think of to the question from the title is claiming that hell contradicts science, since one needs nervous system to feel pain, but that is all destroyed once one dies. However, it seems to me a valid counter-response to that is to claim that the existence of prisons contradicts one of the basic principle of all modern social sciences, that is the principle of rationality. One of the basic principle of modern social science, which one gets ridiculed for questioning (like Bryan Caplan is being), is that the society as a whole as if every individual was rational, because the irrationality of individuals cancels each other out. In other words, that systematic biases are impossible. But in order for prisons to exist, politicians would have to be systematically biased, since a rational person cannot believe prisons are a good thing.
So, what do you think about that stuff?
Another response I can think of to the question from the title is "How could hell ever be a just punishment? Hell is an infinite punishment, and all the crimes we can do on this world are finite.". However, I think a valid response to that is: "How is putting people into prisons justice? Nobody murders unless he or she is insane. And prison is not a place where a sane person will become sane, it is a place from which he will return with even more psychological problems. Besides, how is it justice when you have about 50% chance of getting away with a murder? Around half of murder cases are never solved. Justice means willful actions have predictable consequences. Furthermore, we are living in a society where nobody knows first-hand what is legal and what isn't. The laws we have are so complicated that nobody can fully understand our legal system. That is not justice either."
Another response I can think of to the question from the title is claiming that hell contradicts science, since one needs nervous system to feel pain, but that is all destroyed once one dies. However, it seems to me a valid counter-response to that is to claim that the existence of prisons contradicts one of the basic principle of all modern social sciences, that is the principle of rationality. One of the basic principle of modern social science, which one gets ridiculed for questioning (like Bryan Caplan is being), is that the society as a whole as if every individual was rational, because the irrationality of individuals cancels each other out. In other words, that systematic biases are impossible. But in order for prisons to exist, politicians would have to be systematically biased, since a rational person cannot believe prisons are a good thing.
So, what do you think about that stuff?
