...

I have a few thoughts on the nature of Heaven and Hell, on Karma, on any and every framework surrounding becoming a good person by any other means than itself.

First I'll start with the good news: It's pointless to condemn even Hitler. Every reason we could possibly come up with to justify Hitler's damnation is rooted in what is worldly, and thus we'd only be justified in preventing those worldly problems by any means necessary. Punishing Hitler is pointless by this point because he is dead. Hitler is not commanding anybody who is inspired by his actions, the people who are inspired by his actions are commanding themselves. Hitler stopped being a worldly problem the very moment that he became non-worldly. It was a problem while Hitler was ordering the execution of six million innocent Jewish people, but now that it has happened it's simply a fact of life that it occurred. There are people currently alive who we can prevent from enacting atrocities, but as long as we continue wasting our emotional energy beating a dead horse we'll remain too fatigued to ever have the energy to put down a rabid horse that's trampling over everything and biting everyone it can see. Hell isn't just a waste of time, it's downright harmful to even the righteous.

Next, the bad news: If you expect to be rewarded for your good behavior then you're not as worthy of a reward. If giving money to a homeless person entered you into a raffle where you could get a ticket to an eternal carnival... aren't you really just exploiting that homeless person for selfish reasons? It's suddenly not altruistic to do anything nice but instead an opportunistic dimplomatic gesture to a powerful figure that might scratch your back if you scratch theirs enough. If you want to really be a good person you'd give that money to the homeless person because it's simply a good thing to do. If you want to autotelically do good deeds then it helps to completely forget about Heaven entirely, have it be the furthest thing from your mind. It may be better even to expect Hell in return for being a good person, but only if you continue to autotelically perform those good deeds. If you want to be punished then isn't that just another form of opportunism? Heaven is like the spoonful of sugar that teaches children to not be scared of taking their medicine. Take off the training wheels already.

Karma overlaps all of these things as a coping mechanism that helps people calm down at best, and another thing that makes the righteous complacent at worst. Why do anything if the world is going to do it for you? If anything you'd be a better person for letting the world do everything for you with that framework, because all of its justice is perfectly portioned. You might give up free will and assume that the world is doing perfect good through you, making the question of whether you're doing good with intention or not completely meaningless. I think of Karma like weed, where it helps me relax and let things happen when I should stop being so hung up on matters that are simply out of my hands. Weed is very hard to overdose on... so this is to say that Karma is the least dangerous of these three, but what if there's actual injustice going on and you're loafing around too high to do anything about it? If you see a mess, clean it up. If you can't clean it up, then grab the right tool or maybe ask someone else for help. Also, quit looking at me and making excuses. I'm me, I'm not you.

Edit 2024-05-28 circa 12AM: Is it clear enough that I don't like Hitler? If I saw Hitler doing Hitler stuff and killing jews I'd kill him if I couldn't convert him in time to prevent someone's death. Or imprison him, but even then there's another problem: All the other nazis could try breaking Hitler out. If I kill Hitler then and there then that's like, all of the problems surrounding Hitler immediately solved. Even if I converted him it's got the same issue later down the line of some nazis potentially converting him back. We could put his body somewhere it's no longer an immediate problem, we could put his mind somewhere like that too, maybe both if we convert him while he's imprisoned, but if he's dead then it's kaput. It's not like I'd kill him ruthlessly or anything, it's not worth the energy. Maybe I'd lock him in an airtight room with a bunch of quickly evaporating liquid nitrogen, or I'd fire a bullet through his medulla oblongata. Obviously I'd prefer permanently converting him. Can you imagine a fully reformed Hitler on your side while fighting the nazis?