[SOC] Labor Day Edition

I have had an eventful long weekend so far. Yesterday, I went to the only tea plantation in North America right here in Charleston, SC. I found out that the difference between black, oolong, and green tea is the length of oxidation after it has been shredded. The other thing I discovered is that tea has more caffeine than coffee per pound, but coffee has more caffeine per cup. I also learned that drinking copious amounts of tea makes you have to pee really bad. All in all, it was a nice adventure.

Today is Labor Day where we celebrate hard work by not working. I don't really have much of anything to write about work except that I love working, but I hate working for rats. I'm not sure why it is like this, but it seems that the prerequisite for moving up in management is to have a blunted conscience and no moral sensibility. I think people with a moral sense will have a difficult time in the Machiavellian corporate structure.

For myself, I struggle with severe anger and hatred. It is the leftover of 10+ years of atheism. It is really simple when you consider it. Hitler was undoubtedly the most evil person who ever lived. He murdered millions and felt not a trace of conscience or remorse for any of it. Yet, how did he die? He committed suicide in a virtually painless act. At most, he was emotionally upset over losing World War II, but he found a more merciful end than millions of his victims. He escaped. This is what death is for the atheist. It is merely the end of sensation. With the right drugs, your death can be entirely blissful. As such, there is no justice in the world.

The antidote to anger and hatred is a belief that life does not end at the grave. If you do not believe in God, you realize that Hitler and others like him get away with their crimes. If you believe in the God I believe in, you manage to muster a small bit of sympathy for someone like Hitler because God's punishments are more severe than anything we could ever imagine. As much as I despise evil people, my imagined punishment of them is relatively benign in comparison to what God will do to them. Divine justice will be served.

I have been meditating on this for a bit. Universalists will decry this doctrine of Hell as being cruel and incompatible with a loving God. But if God were not just, there would be no need for the Cross. There would be no need for repentance. And God would be indifferent to the sufferings of the innocent. There is a Hell. There has to be.

I can't be too harsh on the universalists because their error comes from a deep and profound appreciation for what Hell actually is. It is profound and eternal torment. Fundamentalists are rather flip about the concept, but their viewpoint is too one dimensional to appreciate the seriousness of it. This usually happens when you limit the divine law to not drinking, dancing, or chewing tobacco.

When I contemplate Hell, it changes me. It makes me more patient and forgiving. I contemplate the possibility that I may find myself there. And I feel sorrow over the bad people that will certainly go there. When I read of Christians suffering tortures and martyrdom in this life, they held fast knowing both the joy that would be theirs for holding fast to the Lord but also a contemplation of how much worse God's punishments are in comparison to this world's punishments.

Anger and hate come from a belief that there is no justice in the world. But there is justice. There is also mercy. God's mercy is patience for the time being. This time of mercy will not last forever. While it is here, we must all repent. As for our sufferings in this present life, they will be made right in eternity. Both God's love and His justice will be seen. As such, I can give up the hatred in my heart. I will forgive those who trespass against me.

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