Just putting in my two cents here.
I'm an atheist, but I do remember a small tidbit from the mandatory theology classes (Roman Catholic) in college.
Apparently, the reason that God created humanity and gave us free will is because He is love and that love wants to be shared. So He created us to be the recipients of that love and, to make the whole thing meaningful, gave us free will so that we could grow through the mistakes we made and the resulting suffering that we underwent.
As for hell and the afterlife, current catholic doctrine is that hell is actually self-inflicted rather than the mismatch between a loving, merciful God and an eternity of punishment and torment even for repentant sinners. The rationale being that sin is defined as turning away from God's grace and that this is done so willingly. Thus, hell is a willful separation from God which can end anytime the person chooses to repent sincerely, but is typically prevented from doing so by some human failing such as pride or hate. Kind of like Dante's depiction of Satan in that book of his; how his imprisonment in ice is only worsened by his continuous attempts to escape it, instead of accepting his mistake in humility.
Not that this explains how religion arrived at its first axiom though: that God exists.
I'm an atheist, but I do remember a small tidbit from the mandatory theology classes (Roman Catholic) in college.
Apparently, the reason that God created humanity and gave us free will is because He is love and that love wants to be shared. So He created us to be the recipients of that love and, to make the whole thing meaningful, gave us free will so that we could grow through the mistakes we made and the resulting suffering that we underwent.
As for hell and the afterlife, current catholic doctrine is that hell is actually self-inflicted rather than the mismatch between a loving, merciful God and an eternity of punishment and torment even for repentant sinners. The rationale being that sin is defined as turning away from God's grace and that this is done so willingly. Thus, hell is a willful separation from God which can end anytime the person chooses to repent sincerely, but is typically prevented from doing so by some human failing such as pride or hate. Kind of like Dante's depiction of Satan in that book of his; how his imprisonment in ice is only worsened by his continuous attempts to escape it, instead of accepting his mistake in humility.
Not that this explains how religion arrived at its first axiom though: that God exists.
