In Wicca, God and Goddess assist us in choosing our next life, but provide guidance according to which lesson we need to learn. It depends upon our karma. If a person is guilty of harming people then he or she will probably come back as a person who is abused.

I just wanted to explain both beliefs to make things a bit clearer.

However, it is an erroneous assumption that there is no punishment, or that JonBenet Ramsey reaped thw whirlwind from some past evil. Sometimes truly horrible things happen to completely undeserving people simply because there are evil people in existence.

I have to wonder, though, why you find the concept of eternal punishment comforting? I was married to a similarly thinking christian man who absued me horribly in all ways; emotionally, sexually and verbally (of course, as the man of the house he believed it was his right). Yet I do not find comfort in thinking of him being tormented forever after both he and I are long dead. I’d much rather he learn, change and become a better person.

In order for me to justify the belief in hell I’d have to believe (like I was taught as a child), that we are lowly creatures who deserve no better, and that even the slightest mistake condemns us. I had horrible nightmares about hell when I was a very little girl and made even the tiniest mistake, or did some of the things children naturally do. It’s a pretty hideous thing to do to a child.

My blog, like yours Ron, has been inactive. I am still around, but I have moved on a bit. I am still journeying through Spirit, however.

… and still running.

It’s good to be back. Thanks for the welcome.

2. Some do – or at least they seem to like the idea of being reincarnated because of their actions. I guess that’s because most people think they are better than others and so it will be okay for them.

You know where I come down on that one by now.

1) Nobody – it’s a natural law. Like gravity – nobody has to make a brick fall – it falls down in a gravitational field all by itself… Not that *I* believe that applies to Karmic re-incarnation. But that’s an “explanation” from the perspective of a believer in Karma.
2) Nobody believes that bad consequences are a good thing, or that ‘reaping what you sow’ is a “good thing”. The only good that comes from it is that you learn how bad the thing (child abuse in this case) is, first hand, so that you don’t want to do it any more. Unfortunately, in the real world, it doesn’t work that way. Most child abusers are those who are themselves abused in childhood. It seems it ‘teaches’ the opposite.

The really big question is the last:

And if that’s true (and I sure don’t buy any of that) why punish anyone now?

It could be asked not only of any system of thought that includes post-mortem supernatural consequences, but any system of thought … period. Why punish anyone? What do we hope to accomplish when we punish? And, the answer one gives to that one will only ever be as good as their basic theories of justice and ethics. It would pay us all to think it through rather thoroughly before we start writing laws about how various crimes should be “punished.”